Gender and the Environment

Gender
and the Environment

Online Course
November 9 – December 6, 2026

Duration: 4-week online course (Nov 9 – Dec 6).
Focus: Gender, environmental inequality, natural resources, environmental justice, and sustainability.
Certificate: Cornell University certificate (PDF), documenting 25 professional development hours.
Audience: Students, educators, gender equality and women’s rights practitioners, environmental and development professionals, NGO and nonprofit staff, community leaders, and others interested in gender, environment, and sustainability.
Instruction: Asynchronous weekly learning with recorded lectures, readings, case studies, and discussion activities.
Live meetings: Optional live webinars with guest speakers and opportunities for discussion.
Final project: Identify a local environmental issue, examine it through a gender lens, and develop practical, gender-responsive solutions.

Join us for a 4-week global online course exploring how gender shapes people’s relationships with the environment; access to land, food, and water; and participation in environmental decision-making. The course also explores ecofeminism, environmental inequality and justice, and pathways toward a more sustainable future

What's special about this course?

In addition to expert lectures and readings, this course builds a global community. You will experience:

An instructor who fought for women’s rights in Afghanistan. Habiba Rhofian, the lead instructor, is a women’s rights advocate and educator with over 15 years of teaching and advocacy, much of it in Afghanistan, where she founded an organization supporting survivors of gender-based violence. She will offer weekly office hours to answer your questions and help you with your project.
Peer discussion and feedback with participants from 50 countries working on similar projects, where you will generate new ideas and friendships.
Live webinars with guest experts, where participants can ask the speakers questions.
A final project where you create a practical, gender-responsive plan to address an environmental issue in your own community or organization.

Why take this course?

Gender is an important dimension that often receives less attention in discussions of environmental issues. Yet gender can shape who has access to land and water, who produces food, who faces greater environmental risks, whose knowledge is valued, and who has a voice in decisions about natural resources.

This course offers a gender lens for understanding these differences. Participants will explore how gender connects with power, environmental inequality, livelihoods, and access to resources, while also exploring women’s knowledge, agency, and leadership in creating environmental change.

This course helps you:

Understand how gender and environmental issues are connected.
Explore how power and inequality shape access to resources and environmental experiences.
Learn about gender issues related to land, water, food, pollution, and livelihoods.
Recognize the importance of local and Indigenous knowledge.
Draw insights from examples of women’s environmental leadership and activism.
Consider how environmental solutions can become more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable.

What you will do

By the end of the course, you will be able to use a gender lens to better understand environmental issues, inequalities, and possible responses across different social and geographic contexts. During this course, you will:

Learn from short lectures, readings, case studies, and real-world examples.
Explore how ideas about gender, nature, power, and development have shaped environmental relationships over time.
Examine ecofeminist perspectives on development, knowledge, environmental degradation, and inequality.
Analyze who has access to land, water, food, and other environmental resources, and who participates in environmental decision-making.
Reflect on environmental inequality and justice across different communities and regions.
Discuss women’s environmental leadership, livelihoods, sustainability, and economic empowerment.
Participate in live webinars and conversations with guest speakers and participants from different backgrounds and countries.
Apply a gender lens to an environmental issue in your own community or professional context and propose practical solutions.

Course experience

Gender and the Environment combines flexible asynchronous learning with optional live interaction and discussion

Asynchronous weekly learning includes short recorded lectures, readings, case studies, and reflection activities.
Optional live webinars provide opportunities to hear from guest speakers, ask questions, and discuss course themes.
Practical application connects course ideas to participants’ own communities, professional settings, and final projects.
Social learning encourages discussion, exchange of experiences, and learning from participants from different backgrounds and countries.
A flexible structure supports participants working across different professions, locations, and time zones.
Course materials are hosted on the edX Edge online learning platform, with Zoom used for optional live sessions.

Is this course for me?

No prior background in gender studies or environmental studies is required.

This course is open to participants from around the world who want to better understand the connections among gender, environment, inequality, and justice and contribute to more equitable and just communities. This course is designed for:

Students and early-career professionals interested in gender, environment, sustainability, development, or social justice.
Educators and university instructors interested in bringing gender and environmental perspectives into teaching and discussion.
Gender equality and women’s rights practitioners seeking to connect their work with environmental issues and sustainability.
NGO and nonprofit professionals working in gender, environment, development, sustainability, humanitarian action, or social change.
Environmental and development professionals who want to better understand the role of gender, participation, and inequality in environmental programs and decision-making.
Community leaders, activists, and volunteers working on issues such as land, water, food, pollution, livelihoods, climate impacts, or sustainability.
Anyone interested in more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable approaches to environmental challenges.

Our commitment

The Civic Ecology Lab offers this course as an expression of what we stand for: gender equality, women’s empowerment, and the equal participation of people of all genders in caring for the environment and deciding its future. We are committed to creating a learning space that values diverse voices, experiences, and perspectives. We offer this course in a spirit of humility and critical inquiry, and we look forward to learning from your diverse experiences

Meet your course team

The course is offered by the Cornell Civic Ecology Lab, with support from researchers, graduate students, and teaching assistants who help facilitate discussions, workshops, and participant support.

Habiba Rhofian (Cornell University, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment). Habiba holds a master’s degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Rutgers University. She is an educator, researcher, and women’s rights advocate with over 15 years of experience in teaching and advocacy. She has taught at both university and secondary school levels in Afghanistan. In 2016, she founded the Nawin Afghanistan Sustainable Development Organization (NASDO) to support women with no independent income and survivors of gender-based violence by providing educational and income-generating opportunities. In 2026, she received Rutgers University’s Outstanding MA Practicum Award for her practicum titled “The Invisible Wounds of Gender Apartheid: Escaping the Taliban, Not the Patriarchal Trauma.”

Professor Marianne Krasny (Cornell University, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment). Marianne is a widely cited scholar in environmental education and civic ecology and the author of multiple books, including research articles that informed this course.

Fish Yu (Cornell University, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment). Fish received a Master of Science from Cornell University specializing in public participation and climate governance. Over the past two decades, Fish has worked with environmental educators and sustainability practitioners worldwide.

Hamid Nikzad (Cornell University, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment). Hamid is a graduate student in our department. He conducts research on agriculture, human well-being, and climate change. He serves as the course administrator, and will be happy to answer your questions.

Tuition

We use tiered pricing to keep the course accessible to educators worldwide while covering course development and facilitation costs. A limited number of competitive, need-based scholarships will be available.

$90 – Standard fee – Participants residing in the United States, Canada, European countries, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Mainland China, Taiwan, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand.
$20 – Reduced fee – Participants residing in all other countries.

Competitive scholarship – Apply by 11:59pm ET, Nov 1, 2026 (awards announced on Nov 4, 2026). Complete this Word document before registering for the course. You will save this file as PDF, and upload it as part of the online registration.

Credential

Participants who complete the course requirements (weekly work plus final project) will receive a Cornell University certificate in Climate Education & Community Engagement (PDF) documenting 25 professional development hours.

Questions?

Contact our course administrator at CivicEcology@cornell.edu and include “GE course” in the subject line. We look forward to learning with you and to supporting your efforts to design environmental education programs that create meaningful outcomes for people, communities, and the environment.

U.S. Thanksgiving: The course overlaps with Thanksgiving (Thursday, November 26), so any live sessions that week will be optional, recorded, and held early in the week. In addition, all participants will have an extra week, until December 20, to complete the final project.

Online Course November 9 – December 6, 2026