E D U C AT I O N
Think Globally, Teach Electronically UAF eCampus offers a
climate course to a worldwide classroom
UAF
By Rachael Kvapil
W
ith the click of a red “Enroll” button, anyone with internet access— and who can read and understand English—becomes a student of top experts in climate change based in Fairbanks. The button is on the website edx.org, host of massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by institutions of higher learning around the world. Berkeley, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are charter members of edX, and so is UAF. For its eCampus initiative, UAF chose edX as its platform for a dozen MOOCs, including two sets of three courses that can, for a relatively small fee, lead to professional certificates in geographic information systems (GIS) and sports business management. One of the newest courses, launched last November, is Climate Change in Arctic Environments. Over four weeks, students watch video presentations from UAF’s world-class climate modelers, biologists, and social scientists to understand the effects of global warming on the atmosphere, land, water, animals, and people of the Arctic region. All that—plus climate
26 | April 2022
Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com
