M.D. Lytras et al. (Eds.): WSKS 2010, Part I, CCIS 111, pp. 465–469, 2010. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 `The Lived Experience of Climate Change´: An Interdisciplinary and Competence-Based Masters Track Using Open Educational Resources and Virtual Mobility Dina Abbott, Joop De Kraker, Paquita Pérez, Catharien Terwisscha van Scheltinga, Patrick Willems, and Gordon Wilson 1, * 1 Development Policy and Practice, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK Abstract. Drawing on the authors’ involvement in a European Union Erasmus project, this paper explores a new holistic approach to climate change education which uses as a source of active/social learning and knowledge construction the diversity of different disciplinary and sectoral approaches. We further argue for a corresponding pedagogy based on developing transboundary competences where the communicative engagement across space and time, and between diverse perspectives and standpoints, is ICT-enabled. Meeting these challenges is a normative goal, not only for this expanded interdisciplinary approach to cli- mate change education, but also for a global resolution of the climate change is- sue itself. Keywords: Climate Change, Diversity, Interdisciplinary, Lived Experience, Communicative Engagement, Transboundary Competence, Virtual Mobility. 1 Introduction Climate Change is strongly contested, and not only in well-publicized debates be- tween most climate scientists who contend that anthropogenic activity is causing global warming and the skeptical minority. It occurs within the former group over the extent and rate of change, and its ecological and socio-economic impacts. Contestation tends to take place within disciplines – for example, within climate science and within economics. In the world of policy and action, however, contesta- tion also occurs between disciplines, between academics and practitioners, and be- tween interest-based knowledge systems. The argument of this paper is that we should celebrate such diversity. Following Hulme [1], we see contestation as a crucial re- source for learning and ‘better’ action rather than as an impediment to action.. What does our argument mean for climate change education? The paper authors are currently addressing the question through a European Union (EU) Erasmus project, ‘The lived experience of climate change: elearning and virtual mobility’, which brings together 8 Universities across 6 EU countries to support Masters study in the area. The project is creating curriculum resources (which will become open educational * Corresponding author.