Climate Change Education in Universities : A Sri Lankan Perspective

: Esham, M.; Senevirathne, M. M. S. C.; De Silva, D. A. M.; Rosairo, H. S. R.; Karunaratne, A. S.; Wimalasiri, E. M.; Korkeakoski, M.; Haapasaari, O.

: Malalgoda, Chamindi; Amaratunga, Dilanthi; Haigh, Richard; Nissanka, Shavindree; Fernando, Nishara; Borg, Ruben Paul; Hamza, Mo

: 1

Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland

: 2025

: Climate Change Adaptation in the Built Environment: Transdisciplinary and Innovative Learning

: 419

: 443

: 978-3-031-75825-6

: 978-3-031-75826-3

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75826-3_18

: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75826-3_18

Climate change is an urgent and multifaceted challenge encountered by today's society. At the international policy level, especially the United Nations Organization has recognized climate change education as a critical element in addressing the issue of climate change. In developing countries like Sri Lanka, climate change education is a peripheral topic in curricula, the existing climate change and sustainability-related curricula are fragmented and sometimes overly specific or related to a specific theme. In this context, the primary focus of this chapter is to understand the status of climate change education and identify strategies to augment this sector in the Sri Lankan university system. Our study revealed that blended and e-learning were common among pedagogies with limited use of innovative methods such as community outreach and problem-based learning to enhance real-world engagement. Differentiated instruction methods, inverted learning, massive open courses, and flipped classrooms in teaching and learning were rarely used. Based on the results, it is evident that the scope of climate change education in Sri Lanka should be expanded from basic cognitive skills to higher-order cognitive abilities, as well as personal and interpersonal skills.

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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.