We are delighted to published a chapter, “Catalysing Climate Conscious Legal Education Through Open Education Resources” by Julia Dehm, Zoe Nay, Nicole Graham and Steven Chang in Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies edited by Ash Barber, Dr Mais Fatayer, Rani McLennan, Alice Luetchford, Sarah McQuillen, and Angie Williamson, published by Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) via the CAUL Open Educational Resources Collective.

Open Education Down UndOER: Australasian Case Studies is a curated, peer-reviewed, openly-licensed anthology comprising scholarly contributions from esteemed professionals including librarians, researchers, learning and teaching teams, and engaged open education practitioners across Australia. This compendium provides practical examples of open educational practices which can be adapted by readers for use in their own contexts.

The chapter provides a case study outlines of our integrated Climate Conscious Lawyers project that aims to transform legal education. It uses Open Education Resources (OER) to address climate change challenges in the legal profession. The project’s vision is to ensure the next generation of legal professionals are equipped with the expertise to deliver legal services and promote justice in a world transformed by climate change.

In this case study, we seek to demonstrate the power of using OER to create “living” resources and build communities of practice around those resources. This case study also illustrates the benefits of a staged system of progressively publishing chapters in three “tranches” from mid-2024 to mid-2025.

We conclude by making recommendations to other open practitioners and educators on planning OER projects in a holistic way that are highly integrated with:

curriculum change initiatives
professional practice
community-building.