Dr. Avit Bhowmik | Environmental Scientist · Climate Solutionist

Core Area 1 - Course, learners and learning outcomes

As a working case for this portfolio, I have selected the course Nordic Climate Change Studies (CCGA08). I taught this course for the first time in the autumn semester of 2019 with an allowance of 260 hours. Below I describe the details of the course that are relevant for the portfolio, characteristics of the learners and the intended learning outcomes found in the course syllabus in the following subsections.

  • Course setup
  • Learners' profile
  • Intended learning outcomes

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Course setup


CCGA08 was originally designed in 2012 to offer to the incoming students of Lüneburg University, Germany, as a part of a teacher and student exchange program established with Karlstad University through the Linnaeus Palme scholarship. Since then, the course has been offered every year (either in Spring or Autumn semester), predominantly to the exchange students from this program, but also to the international exchange students in other programs and interested students in general in Karlstad University. The course aims to provide basic and advanced knowledge about climate change and its global impacts, with a focus on Sweden and the Nordic countries. Adaptation and mitigation responses along with the global and Nordic policies to tackle climate change are also covered in this course.

The course comprises two modules: (i) a problem module, where the nature and evidence of climate change and its social-ecological impacts are taught, and (ii) a solution module, where the policy, adaptation and mitigation tools for solving climate change problem are delivered to the students. Each module is consist of six lectures, a seminar and an excursion (3-7 days) to places of special interests in Nordic countries. Climate change related extreme weather events like floods, and glaciers, as well as local mitigation and adaptation efforts are studied during the excursions.


The modules, lectures, seminars and excursions of CCGA08 planned for the Autumn semester 2019.


CCGA08 was taught between week 36 of 2019 and week 2 of 2020 at a 50% (Day) pace. The course has upper‐secondary level entry requirements (G1N) and is taught in undergraduate level (although students from postgraduate level, i.e. master's at Karlstad University participated). The admission requirements are general and a upper secondary level English 6, or equivalent. Further details about the course is available at the Karlstad University website (www.kau.se) and the Canvas page (kau.instructure.com/courses/5681).

Learners' profile


Although the course was originally designed for the exchange students from Lüneburg University, Germany, I received students from all over the world (e.g. South Korea, U.S.A., Ethiopia) including international students from other study programs at Karlstad University. The age group of the students is around 25 years and their level of current education ranged from bachelor's to master's. The female and male students covered 60% and 40% of the participants, respectively. A survey was conducted to extract students' previous knowledge and experience of climate change and expectation from the course, before the start of the course. The background of the students ranged from computer science, business administration to political and sustainability science, which diverse cultural and hence educational context and knowledge about climate change.

Grid Image A part of the CCGA08 Autumn 2019 participants with me.

Intended learning outcomes


Below I describe my colleague (Max Hansson) and my interpretation of the four intended learning outcomes (ILO) of CCGA08:

  • After the completion of the course, students should be able to explain the theories and evidences related to climate change, and its causes and global impacts.
  • Students should also be able to explain the causes and impacts of climate change in the Nordic region.
  • The course should provide capability of critically reviewing and discussing the Nordic and international policies, goals, adaptation and mitigations tools available to reduce and eliminate the impacts of climate change.
  • The participants should also be able to give an account of and demonstrate how our societal, lifestyle and knowledge action address the climate change issue and help averting it.

Course syllabus of CCGA08.