A National Climate Adaptation Curriculum

Communities are struggling with how to ensure access to reliable water, food, energy, transportation, health, and other services in the face of a changing climate. In most cases, they lack the leaders, workforce, and tools to address the challenges. At the same time, there is tremendous interest in addressing these challenges among college students, but the pathway to adequate training is not clear (particularly for students from under-represented groups). A community proposal was recently submitted to build a national alliance of university partners and stakeholders (i.e., private companies, non-profit and community organizations, local, state, and federal governments) to train the workforce capable of addressing climate mitigation, adaptation, and risk management solutions. This certificate and internship program would incorporate best practice components from several very successful on-line training alliances, and is informed by overarching reports and surveys (e.g. National Academies) that address workforce needs. Through community events and surveys, the proposal developers have identified over 100 university-stakeholder partnerships and over 100 curriculum developers that will be involved in the project. This proposal would bring ~$10 million into the community for this effort and we hope to know the fate of the proposal by the 18-20 July conference date. The presentation would outline the project and open the invitation to join the alliance.