Fourteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

As the threat of climate change looms, there is a growing consensus on the urgent need to build a global framework for sustainable production, marketing, and use of resources. Educational institutions have come under renewed pressure to develop and implement curricula that foster a sense of global stewardship and citizenship in their students. The search for solutions to the evolving and multidimensional global challenges engendered by climate change requires a new generation of professionals that is equipped with the knowledge, skills, and capacity to approach these challenges with creativity, cooperativeness, and cultural sensitivity. Education plays an important role in developing and nurturing competencies in sustainability among students as learners, workers, consumers, and citizens. This study assesses whether and how online education exchange can be utilized to support students to develop local, intercultural, and global competencies for sustainability. We present lessons from a cross-cultural and cross-national online education exchange program that facilitated discussions on environmental health and sustainable development among undergraduate students in Cairo and Chicago. The online exchange helped students to explore challenges to sustainable development within their own cities and countries. Students also engaged in discussions, evaluated and critically assessed the different approaches taken in Egypt and the USA to tackle environmental health and sustainability problems.

Presenters

Isidore Udoh
Associate Professor, Health Sciences and Physical Education, Northeastern Illinois University, Illinois, United States

Martina Jaskolski
Assistant Professor of Sustainable Development, Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology, The American University in Cairo, Egypt