Cultivating a Glocal Virtual Classroom for Planetary Health

The growing worldwide challenges of climate change, environmental degradation with biodiversity loss, and systemic inequities call for accessible, transformative, and impactful planetary health education that embraces a global perspective. However, traditional international learning experiences favor those with financial advantages, limiting equitable access to (planetary health) knowledge, intercultural collaboration competencies, and leadership opportunities. To address this challenge, the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht in the Netherlands and St. Luke's Medical Center College of Medicine's Planetary and Global Health Program (PGHP) in the Philippines developed a joint online course on Planetary Health and Climate-Resilient Health Systems, combining synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. This novel approach allowed for collaboration between Dutch and Filipino medical students, integrating international perspectives while providing an opportunity to solve local problems and offering equitable access to education. The course incorporated online modules, workshops, and mentorshipblending expertise from educators from the Netherlands and the Philippines. Through the course, participants engaged in intercultural teamwork, focusing on student-identified planetary health priority issues such as eco-anxiety, fast fashion, and healthcare waste management. This initiative illustrates the importance and feasibility of collaborative, glocal approaches to planetary health education, with learners gaining insights into localized solutions for global issues. It also showed how the values of decolonizing global health education and bidirectional knowledge exchange can turn intercultural learning into educational practice. Future iterations will expand the course to involve more countries, refine the use of interactive tools, address time-zone challenges, and incorporate education research to further study the learning process and outcomes. Institutional support is essential to scale this educational model, ensuring planetary health education remains accessible and impactful.