The Vermont Climate Assessment: A Problem-Based Model to Bridge National Climate Research and Local Resilience

Released in June of 2014, the Vermont Climate Assessment (Galford et al.) was the first assessment in the country that followed the format of the National Climate Assessment in capturing climate change risks at a state level, across multiple sectors. This was the product of a graduate-level course conducted in workshop format that featured a problem-based learning project to inform the development of local resilience strategies. This paper describes development of the key elements of the course and best practices for this learning model, including two examples of local resilience approaches inspired by the Vermont Climate Assessment (VCA). This class model can be replicated in states and municipalities to communicate opportunities and risks to catalyze local resilience building.