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Data Interoperability for Informed Decisions

Raw data about households and bio-physical resources has low value for climate monitoring. Data valorization is key to enhancing the value of institutional data by making it useful to enable informed decisions. The Climate Panel aims to promote experiential learning on data valorization techniques by developing approaches that unlock insights from data through the use of expert panels.
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Drawing upon Local Expertise

The climate panel engages a consultative panel of international experts to review portfolios of participants enrolled in the 12 week online course on disaster resilience. The review will enable the creation of a biennial showcase of innovations on data interoperability that focuses on aspects of experiential problem framing and human centered design approaches that enable the downscaling and coupling of models of disaster resilience.


 

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Data Interoperability via Experiential Learning

For data to drive decision making, it needs to be interoperable. In other words data interoperability can enable comparisons of intensity of flood or drought events, impacts on livelihoods and the responses they elicited. The Climate Panel utilizes 3 key building blocks that aid data interoperability: (a) Creating typologies of tradeoff intensities, (b) Synthesizing data from biophysical and institutional domains and (c) Monitoring climate resilience by creating data sets based on verifiable and previously agreed upon metrics and semantics. This three step approach to data interoperability offers several opportunities for experiential learning. The concept of “Learning Design” has gained momentum in the education space, mostly through discussions at conferences, webinars, e-books, and more. Learner-centered design is the process of building learning experiences by focusing on learner challenges and finding solutions by working through an iterative process. Some of the key approaches that are being explored by learning design within gap year courses include the following:

•    Design Thinking
•    Human-Centered Design
•    Good Practices in Curriculum Development
•    Data-Driven Learning
•    Collaborative Problem Solving

Courses

COURSE INFORMATION

COURSE ASSESMENTS

The course moderator will offer periodic comments on each draft submission of a participant portfolio. The portfolio will be developed by drawing upon climate change data from select U.S. States & river basins in Tanzania & India. At the end of the course, the participants are expected to present their portfolio as a field guide that can be used by local authorities, donors and/or local governments to support environmental planning and management in select U.S. States, South Asia & Sub-Saharan Africa. Portfolio submissions should be made no earlier than 2 weeks before the end of the course and no later than 1 week after the date of the final course lecture. An expert panel will assess the portfolios and select the top 3 submissions every year to be included in discussions on the biennial showcase that targets a policy audience.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Curriculum developed to build regional capacity for drought/flood assessment and response by applying a WEF Nexus framework,

  • Partners trained on methodologies that lower costs of monitoring the effects of loss and damage in agriculture sector (irrigation, water supply, forestry),

  • Replication parameters for Tutorial to Thesis (T2T) model validated.

  • Development of joint proposals for pilot-testing of development interventions that address the effects of loss and damage in agriculture,

  • Development of an international network for student/ faculty exchange to support the establishment of a loss and damage registry on climate adaptation in agriculture

COURSE REGISTRATION FEES

Registration for the online course starting on May 01, 2023 will close on March 30 and for the online course starting on September 01, 2023 on July 30. The promotional course material can be accessed for a reduced fee of 100 US Dollars and discounts and special prices are available for participants from partner organizations. The full course that will run for 12 weeks via the Climate Panel platform will include guest lectures and is available for a fee of 250 US Dollars. Limited fee waivers are available for participants from accredited organizations/regions.

RECOMMENDED COURSE READING

Kurian M. and Y. Kojima. 2021. Boundary Science- Re-imagining water-energy-food interactions in the context of a data light approach to monitoring the environment-development Nexus, Elsevier, London and MA.

CLIMATE PANEL RESOURCES

To aid the preparation of the course portfolio participants will be granted access to secondary datasets from Sub-Saharan Africa that focus on rural water supply infrastructure and services. In addition, course participants will be supported by two examples: one of a monitoring methodology for UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.3 and another of watershed management in South Asia. Resources such as linked databases to organizations like World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Wyoming supercomputing center, a virtual reality center, and inspiration music (NW2H) lounge will also be made available via the online platform. Other resources include access to a book lounge of close to 100 read-only publications (books, reports and journal articles), an archive of methods that are extracted from a portfolio of previous cohorts of courses, a practical step-by-step guide- a climate model developed at the United Nations University and climate change data from Sub-Saharan Africa.

COURSE CERTIFICATION VIA REGIONAL PARTNERS

The Climate Panel will strive to certify the course through partners who meet the following criteria:

  • Located in a drought/flood prone region in Sub-Saharan Africa/Middle East/Asia and The Americas

  • A willingness to adapt the course material in the form of lectures that speak to regional policy priorities relating to loss and damage in the agriculture sector.

  • As part of a process of exploring policy linkages a willingness to co-design regional consultations by employing the Modus Operandi (typology/composite index) of the Climate Panel

  • As part of a certification process identify entry points to engage with policy processes regionally via data, visuals and government-supported projects

  • A willingness to collaborate to work out modalities for registration of courses using the CP website (while re-directing students to enroll for courses hosted by regional partners)

TARGET AUDIENCE

  • Young professionals enrolled in Master’s/PhD programs with thesis projects covering environmental policy and governance.

  • Gap year students in the Global North/NGO and development practitioners interested in gap year courses involving disaster resilience and environmental science courses.

  • University administrators focused on fostering regional partnerships in the field of climate adaptation and disaster resilience.

  • International organizations focused on monitoring, evaluation and learning as they relate to the design of a loss and damage registry in agriculture.

  • International foundations focused on promoting research co-design, data reuse and open data principles.

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