UC San Diego Launches New “Climate Change Education Requirement”

By Mary Stevens of Campus Reform

A California public university has officially launched a new update to its curriculum that will force all students to take at least one course on climate change.

Since the start of the current fall semester, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has begun mandating the “Climate Change Education Requirement” for brand new undergraduates. UCSD announced the curriculum update in November. 

“A knowledge of climate change is required of all candidates for a Bachelor’s degree who are admitted to UC San Diego as a first-time, first-year student in Fall 2024 or thereafter,” the school website notes.

UCSD states that the Jane Teranes Climate Change Education Requirement “is designed to empower our students with the knowledge and skills needed to confront the urgent global challenge of climate change.”

Students have an extensive list of courses to choose from in order to fulfill the requirement, including: “Documenting Climate Change: Past and Present,” “Politics of Environmental Change,” “Climate Justice,” “The Astronomy of Climate Change,” “Gender and Climate Justice,” “Indigenous Approaches to Climate Change,” “Literature & the Environment,” “Critical Writing: Climate Change,” and “Environmentalism in Arts and Media.”

“UC San Diego has a long history of leadership in climate research and education, and the Jane Teranes Climate Change Education Requirement marks a new path forward,” Chancellor Pradeep Khosla told UC San Diego Today. “Whether undergraduates are majoring in STEM, the humanities, arts, social sciences or any other field, this requirement will equip them with a strong understanding of climate change and how they can contribute to meaningful solutions.” 

Many of the classes that fall under the Climate Change Education Requirement also overlap with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) courses. 

The new requirement was inspired by UC San Diego’s DEI Requirement, which began in 2011. The DEI Requirement is “designed to critically engage students with topics on race, power, and anti-racist efforts that meaningfully challenge structural racism,” according to UC San Diego Today.

“We took the best learnings from the DEI requirement—which [Jane Teranes] was also involved with—ensuring that the requirement does not add additional time to degree for students,” Muir College Provost Wayne Yang told the publication. “The climate requirement incentivizes and encourages faculty to integrate climate change education into their upper division courses, and thus deepens the curriculum by focusing on what students can actually do about climate change from their disciplines. Importantly, it treats climate change as an interdisciplinary issue.” 

This is not the first time that UCSD has aggressively pushed a climate change agenda. In May, the school invited former Vice President Al Gore as its commencement speaker, noting his commitment “to raising global awareness around and helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change — a commitment UC San Diego shares.”

Similarly, Columbia University hosted a week-long program in August in order to train middle school teachers on methods to instruct on climate change, with a focus on “culturally-sensitive learning.”