As a climate expert, be a part of the broader movement to create a more interdisciplinary and climate aware, engaged, and active campus.
Eligibility and compensation
At this early stage in our program’s development we are recruiting UBC graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with teaching experience in climate change and climate justice-related topics as climate experts. In following years, we plan to expand our cohort to faculty, staff, Indigenous knowledge holders, research associates, and lab managers.
The annual cohort of experts is finalized in mid-summer. Course instructors can browse and request 50- or 80-minute lectures from the climate experts for their undergraduate courses taught in Winter Term 1 or 2 (Sept-April).
Funding for the pilot year is administered by the UBC Sustainability Initiative and climate experts will receive a base rate of $150 per 50-minute lecture and $180 per 80-minute lecture.
Working with Instructors
Course instructors requesting experts from the Climate Teaching Connector will be required to provide their request 2-4 weeks in advance, along with a course syllabus from which the instructor and expert will co-identify one or more learning outcomes for the guest lecture.
Instructors will additionally be asked to incorporate a small in-class assessment related to the guest lecture to encourage student engagement.
This collaborative approach helps to integrate guest lectures into course content and match the level of this content with students.
Submit your application
Applications accepted on a rolling basis
Questions?
Email our project lead, UBC Climate Hub’s Charlotte Taylor, at ctc.info@ubc.ca.
Testimonials
Being part of the Climate Teaching Connector has been a great experience in both educating UBC students and learning from their diverse views. Raising awareness about climate change issues is critical and engaging diverse groups is key. CTC provides this opportunity for which I am grateful for and aim to engage more this coming year.
Farrukh Chishtie, CTC Climate Expert, Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Medicine
I thoroughly enjoyed my time preparing and delivering the guest lectures, and more so while interacting with my audience. The intention behind this program is obvious, and with the right seeding it has the opportunity to become something much larger.
Imranul Laskar, CTC Climate Expert, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Faculty of Science
A highlight of the Climate Teaching Connector was designing and delivering a lesson to a class of almost 300 fourth-year engineering students. The instructor told me beforehand that, for many of the students, it would be the first real lesson on climate change of their degree programs — the participation and feedback from students after the lesson helped me to understand just how important it is to me to be actively involved in changing that.
Nigel Deans, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Faculty of Science
Being a part of the Climate Teaching Connector has been a fantastic opportunity; I've gotten to meet other "climate experts" at the university, while also gaining experience in designing and delivering lectures and working with instructors across several wide-ranging disciplines. The questions I received from students challenged me to view my research from diverse perspectives and I was able to think about the implications of my work in ways that I might not otherwise have considered.
Sara Cannon, CTC Climate Expert, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and the Department of Geography, Faculty of Science and Arts