Catalysing Transformative Change in Planetary Health Education

ongoing

The Planetary Health field seeks to understand the inextricable link between health and the environment. Embedding planetary health education in curricula is urgently needed to deliver new transdisciplinary, intersectoral solutions for communities facing complex planetary challenges. The “Catalysing Transformative Change in Planetary Health Education” (CATA-Earth) project brings together 6 Higher Education Institutions from The Netherlands, Spain, Bangladesh and Indonesia, collaborating with 4 local stakeholder organisations. The overall objective of CATA-Earth is to build capacity for designing and delivering innovative community-driven planetary health education in climate-vulnerable regions in Asia and to create a new generation of change makers with actionable planetary health knowledge and skills. This is achieved by employing Community Engaged Learning and Challenge-Based Learning methods and a “Co-Design, Co-Develop and Co-Deliver” approach to involve non-academic stakeholders at all stages. The outputs include developing a planetary health education Framework and Toolkit that will result in 4 accredited planetary health HEI courses and a Massive Open Online Course, each incorporating the priorities of students, enterprises and local communities and aligned to regional socio-economic and environmental challenges. These courses will be delivered to at least 80 students during the project lifetime with accompanying capstone projects. 4 train the trainers programmes will create a cadre of over 40 academic teachers and community leaders to deliver a planetary health curriculum in partner regions. The framework, toolkit and an accessible knowledge repository for all deliverables and resources will support the widespread exploitation of CATA-Earth results in other Asian regions and beyond, thus heightening the visibility of Planetary Health and the essential role of innovative, community-driven higher education.