Raising Awareness through Training on Green Transition Challenges

By providing a course on Environmental Transition and Societal Issues, Université Paris Cité aims to raise awareness among the student community of the Anthropocene and planetary limitations, equip them with ideas on growth and degrowth, and help them become active players in the green transition.

At a time when the Ministry of Higher Education and Research recommends that, within five years, “100% of learners in the French higher education system should be trained in the green transition,” universities are opting for theoretical scientific teaching, aimed at a community of students studying science.

Université Paris Cité has chosen to offer content that is accessible and understandable to everyone, without any disciplinary prerequisites, by proposing the Environmental Transition and Societal Issues teaching unit (UE).

This course reflects the outcome of discussions from a working group on Knowledge and Action in the Anthropocene (SAHA), which was set up by the “sustainable development” commission, as required by the Academic Senate.

“For the teachers, the premise is simple: it is no longer possible to teach as we did 10 years ago. Through this course, we want to give students the tools to understand the transformation of today’s society and to help them choose their professional life as well as their position as citizens,” explains Gaëlle Charron, responsible for teaching the course.

From February to March, those students who had chosen this course attended one and a half hour lectures (two of which were dedicated to the hard sciences), followed by a 30 minute discussion. The students then went into action by working in small groups on public awareness projects. “In this way, they acquire project management skills and then become “awareness-raisers” for the general public themselves,” says Gaëlle Charron.