Climatic changes and higher education: a combination between research and education

It is to be observed at the level of higher education, an original combination between research and education linked to climate changes in programs of science and technology. At this beginning, there is a need to observe the challenge to adapt and develop educational programs that include themes associated to regional diversity, recognizing complex and diversified ecosystems and the prevalence of an urban way of life with all its contradictions, linked to consumption, and mainly to an increase of a logic of unsustainability. Facing this, behaviors, sustainable attitudes and ethic values have to be stimulated and shared. How to find educational alternatives to approach a theme whose scenarios are negative and problematic, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports indicate, without falling into catastrophist immobility worldviews, or on the other side into a simplistic view related to such an important and crucial issue for contemporary society? This article analyses the methodological alternative to include the theme of climatic changes in the academic background proposed by the Sao Paulo University (USP) INterdisciplinary CLimate INvEstigation Center (INCLINE). It has been observed its adequacy to the role of education to promote social learning, environmentally built, related to processes whose contents and emphasis are centered on social capacity building - within a cooperative perspective that approaches critical thought and the ability to solve problems whose focus in needs aids people to deal with a future of uncertain changes.