53 ‘A walk on the wild side’: Embedding ESD through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

Dr Niall Majury presented Remaking Cities, a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) module co-developed with the University of Pittsburgh. The initiative uses ESD principles to enable students to critically explore urban regeneration and sustainability through comparative, cross-cultural analysis.

The module, delivered to small cohorts of geography, planning, and urban studies students, examines regeneration in Belfast and Pittsburgh—two post-industrial cities with histories of division and inequality, alongside rapid redevelopment. Students work in transatlantic teams, undertaking stakeholder interviews, site visits, and comparative analyses framed through conceptual lenses such as “global city,” “creative city,” or “sustainable city.”

Classes are co-taught weekly, combining lectures, guest speakers, and project-based group work. Students create outputs including walking tour vlogs, stakeholder engagement events, and reports shared with community partners, ensuring that their work has real-world relevance.

Dr Majury acknowledged the challenges of COIL, including differences in institutional resources, academic cultures, and assessment norms, but emphasised the transformative learning potential. Students valued the authenticity of the tasks, the cross-cultural collaboration, and the chance to produce outputs with impact beyond the classroom. Feedback described it as the “most real-life class” they had taken.

The module exemplifies how COIL can deepen sustainability competencies by situating local issues within global contexts, while fostering empathy, critical awareness, and collaborative problem-solving. Dr Majury argued that such models help students confront the complexity of sustainability challenges and build the global citizenship skills essential for future leaders.