The Climate Change Educational Partnership: Climate Change, Engineered Systems, and Society

The NAE Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society collaborated with four partners on a project to characterize the societal and pedagogical challenges posed by the interactions of climate change, engineered systems, and society, and identify educational efforts to enable engineers, teachers, students, policymakers, and the public to meet the challenges. The project also aimed to build awareness among diverse communities affected by climate change and engineered systems and to engage them in addressing these challenges. This report is the summary of three workshops on the interactions of climate change with engineered systems in society and the educational efforts needed to address them. The first workshop reviewed social and technical dimensions of the relationships among climate, engineered systems, and society. The second examined opportunities and challenges for formal and informal education to prepare students and citizens to address these issues. The third workshop solicited participation from government officials, Native American tribal representatives, and professional society leaders, as well as educators, artists, scientists, and engineers who are developing programs to educate students and citizens in ways that foster their leadership skills. This report will be a useful resource to engineers, educators, corporate leaders, local and regional officials, members of professional societies, and others in their efforts to understand and address the challenges of climate change and its societal impacts.