Ecocritical analysis of “glocal” essays on Lived Experiences of Climate Change in higher education

Abstract

As a “super-wicked problem,” climate change deserves a multidisciplinary approach in higher education that actively engages students with this global issue that has both local and regional consequences. The online short learning program “Climate change: from global to local action” combines environmental scientific, economic, and social knowledge. The conceptual model of Lived Experience of Climate Change (LivExpCC) aims at engaging students with climate change and explicitly adds the human dimension. Students write an essay using the LivExpCC-model: they connect their personal and local experiences with regional proximate influences and with broader global contextual influences of climate change. This stimulates the knowledge–reflection–engagement–action cycle. We analyze student essays from an environmental humanities perspective, looking specifically at distances (spatial and temporal distances and distances in interest). The results of these ecocritical analyses show that limited local distances and vivid inherited histories reflect the awareness of students of the effects of climate change and how they engage with it in different ways.