Course overview
Welcome to Using innovations and climate-responsive actions to build community resilience
This course is intended for field workers and practitioners who are working with rural communities that are affected by climate change events and are looking to innovation as the key climate-responsive action to address community resilience. The course will explore alternative sustainable livelihoods to better manage natural resources as a result of innovation in climate resilience. Existing innovations can be tailored to suit local situations. Successful implementation of the innovation depends on institutional support, access to markets, skills and capacity enhancement and the availability of local/traditional knowledge. The concept of total biomass use will help the learner to understand best practices in natural resource management and conservation at a local level. The course will identify types of institutional support, networks and skills required to implement total biomass use and explore a climate-responsive livelihood through the innovation model that is adapted.
Using innovations and climate-responsive actions to build community resilience—Is this course for you?
Each course is available to any member of the community. The learners are people with low literacy levels and include grassroots-level volunteers, community leaders, community health workers and others in positions to support women and girls at the community level. Such individuals could use the course for their own benefit or for working with their community or communities.
The learner should have an understanding of how climate change affects the local area where this learning is to be used and reasonable knowledge about sustainability and its relation to sustainable livelihoods at the village and community level.
course outcomes
Outcomes
On completion of Using Innovations and Climate-Responsive Actions to Build Community Resilience you will be able to:
- identify examples of innovations at the household and community level that led to successful climate change mitigation and climate-responsive livelihoods.
- describe various innovations and how to identify which innovations are suitable in a specific context — that is, classify innovations based on their contextuality and usability.
- support or identify support systems for specific innovation — for example, resources and networks required to turn an idea into an innovation to address local concerns.
- explain the link between human habitat, natural resources and optimisation of their use through total or near total biomass use.
- discuss the link between human habitat and the available natural resources, as well as their conservation and use to address multiple needs of a traditional community, to develop relevant skills for total biomass use.
Timeframe
Time
You will need approximately 7.5 hours to complete this course.
This course contains five units. Each unit will need approximately 1.5 hours of learning time.
An additional two hours of self-study time may be required.
Study skills
As an adult learner you will take a different approach to learning than you did when you were a schoolchild. You will choose what you want to study, you will have a professional or personal motivation for learning and you will most likely be fitting your study activities around other professional or domestic responsibilities.
Essentially you will be taking control of your learning environment. You will therefore need to think about how issues such as time management, goal setting and stress management will affect your performance. You may need to review skills such as essay planning, coping with exams and using the Web as a learning resource.
Your most significant considerations will be time and space — that is, the time you dedicate to your learning and the environment in which you engage in that learning.
We recommend that you take time now — that is, before you begin your self-study — to familiarise yourself with these issues. There are a number of excellent resources on the Web that can help you. For example:
This website has a list of resources about study skills, including taking notes, strategies for reading textbooks, using reference sources and dealing with test anxiety.
This website has useful links to resources on time management; efficient reading; questioning, listening and observing skills; “hands-on” learning; memory building; staying motivated; and developing a learning plan.
These two websites can get you started on your learning journey. At the time of writing, the links to them were active. To find more options, go to www.google.com and type in phrases such as “self-study basics,” “self-study tips” or “self-study skills.”
Need help?
At the learning centre you will receive the same support as you would from any classroom teacher, or you might find a more experienced tutor to support you during a contact session.
Assessments
At the end of each of the five units in this course there is a self-assessment with three questions in multiple choice question (MCQ) format. The MCQ assessment will take 15 minutes to complete. The answers to the multiple choice questions are in the Answer Key, at the end of the course.
There are no teacher-marked assessments.
A formative assessment is also included for each of the five units to enhance your understanding of the unit topic and information.
