Training Future Nurses: Indonesia Launches Climate-Health Course to Build Resilience

Researchers from Universitas Indonesia and Monash University developed one of the first climate-change education electives for nursing students in the Asia–Pacific, showing it significantly shifted students’ understanding of climate risks and the role of nurses in climate action. The course offers a practical, replicable model for integrating climate and health education into nursing curricula in vulnerable low- and middle-income countries.

In a landmark collaboration between the Faculty of Nursing at Universitas Indonesia and the School of Nursing and Midwifery with the Climate and Health Initiative at Monash University, researchers have designed one of the first climate-change education electives for nursing students in the Asia–Pacific region. This effort responds to a widening global gap: although climate change intensifies disease burdens, drives disasters, and strains healthcare systems, most nursing programs, especially in low- and middle-income countries, do not yet teach students how to respond. In Indonesia, where more than 580,000 nurses face worsening floods, fires, air pollution, heat stress, and infectious outbreaks, the absence of climate content in national nursing standards has become increasingly untenable. The new elective, Nursing Perspectives on Climate Change, seeks to close this gap by equipping future nurses with the knowledge and confidence to confront climate-driven health challenges.

Designing a Course for a Changing Planet

The team adopted a design-based research framework to build the elective in stages. Their first step revealed a striking reality: Indonesia’s national nursing curriculum did not refer to climate-health links despite the country’s extreme vulnerability to environmental hazards. A multi-stakeholder advisory group, comprising educators, clinicians, students, policymakers, and an international expert, worked to define the learning goals. These included understanding the science of climate change, recognising health impacts, promoting sustainable clinical practices, and advocating for community adaptation strategies. Focus groups with Indonesian nursing students ensured cultural relevance, surfacing misconceptions and highlighting local knowledge gaps. The course was intentionally interdisciplinary, open to students from fields such as engineering, psychology, mathematics, and the humanities, reinforcing the principle that climate solutions require multiple sectors working together.

Inside the Classroom: Debates, Stories and Real-World Reflections

The course was structured into three modules covering climate science, health impacts, and clinical mitigation and adaptation. Teaching methods were intentionally varied to deepen engagement. Interactive lectures were paired with international guest speakers, student-led debates, online forums, quizzes, and group projects. A photovoice assignment added emotional and social depth: students selected photographs illustrating climate-related health issues in their communities and presented their interpretations. This creative exercise grounded abstract climate discussions in lived Indonesian experiences, from choking smoke to flood-damaged homes, revealing social inequities and environmental vulnerabilities. The debates quickly became a classroom favourite, pushing students to challenge assumptions, analyse evidence, and articulate complex arguments about topics such as heat-related illness, mental-health effects, and food insecurity.

A Shift in Perception and Professional Identity

Evaluations from two course offerings, early and late 2024, revealed exceptionally high student satisfaction, with average scores above 5.7 on a 6-point scale. Interviews with 12 students illustrate why. Many confessed they had once believed climate change was natural or irrelevant to human wellbeing. Several from rural backgrounds said they had underestimated the severity of climate threats in urban centres until the course revealed shared vulnerabilities across Indonesia’s islands. Most transformative was students’ emerging understanding of nurses’ roles in climate action. Many had never considered that hospitals and clinics generate significant greenhouse emissions or that nurses could help reduce them through sustainable practices. By the end, students viewed climate change as everyone’s responsibility and saw nurses as crucial connectors between science, community, and policy. They stressed the need for collaboration with engineers, urban planners, and government agencies to reduce climate risks and improve community resilience.

A Model for the Future of Nursing Education

Though the study acknowledges limitations, including two cohorts, a modest interview sample, and no quantitative knowledge testing, the early evidence shows that the elective reshaped attitudes, strengthened analytical skills, and expanded students’ vision of their profession. By sharing the curriculum, teaching methods, and evaluation findings, the researchers offer a replicable model for other nursing schools in Indonesia and beyond. They argue that integrating climate content into national accreditation standards would ensure that all Indonesian nursing graduates can identify climate-related health risks, support adaptation strategies, and lead sustainability initiatives within healthcare systems. As climate change accelerates, this elective demonstrates how nursing education can evolve from passive awareness to active professional readiness, preparing the next generation of nurses to safeguard public health in an increasingly unstable world.