As part of the Sustainability Hub's mission to support faculty from across disciplines who are working to integrate sustainability and climate change content in their teaching so that their students can become agents of change in the world, Climate Education Grants offer funding for faculty members to enhance their existing courses with climate change content. This year's recipients include:
Improving climate analysis in chemical, biological, and environmental engineering capstone design courses
Jonathan Verrett, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
The purpose of this project is to bring the environmental analysis component in the capstone course in line with curriculum changes that were undertaken in the environmental analysis courses. We want to move beyond pollution prevention and control to evaluate environmental and climate impacts more holistically, applying and building on the techniques that students have learned in the Fundamentals of Sustainable Engineering (CHBE 370).
Climate-focused ESG reporting and analysis
Caren Lombard, Finance Division, Sauder School of Business
The goal of this course is to provide students with the background to understand the importance of ESG reporting to stakeholders of publicly traded corporations. While Environmental, Social, and Governance factors will be considered, climate will be the main focus. Topics covered will include current and evolving climate regulation, reporting frameworks and standards, and best practices. In addition to corporate reporting, there will be focus on the investor perspective and topics such as ESG ratings, shareholder engagement, investment strategies, and vehicles to facilitate the financing of climate mitigation, adaptation, and transition plans will be included.
Incorporating climate variables into models – variable selection strategies
Bianca Eskelson, Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry
The goal is to develop a course module on variable selection and model building when correlated climate variables are used as independent variables in the model. The course module will consist of a small set of case study examples and a laboratory assignment, which will allow students to work through a variable selection problem with climate variables on their own.
Integrating and implementing climate change education for graduate level courses in the Masters of Occupational Therapy program
Ben Mortenson, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine
Climate change and health are inextricably linked because climate change can have a direct impact on health (e.g., poor air quality and increasing levels of asthma). It also has a disproportional effect on people with disability, because of the structural socioeconomic marginalization they experience. Last year, in British Columbia alone, there were heat domes, wildfires, poor air quality, droughts, landslides and floods, which brought about undue suffering, especially to vulnerable populations including older adults and people with disabilities. occupational therapy and occupational science can play a vital role in helping people resume daily activities among those adversely affected by climate disasters (i.e., climate adaptation). Our goal is to deliver climate change education, in the context of health, climate change adaptation, and mitigation for Master of Occupational Science Students via in-course lectures, tutorials and workshops, in collaboration with instructors from the program.
Witchcraft, Witch Persecutions, and Ecological Events
Kyle Frackman, Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies, Faculty of Arts
The goal is to enhance a popular course by incorporating more climate- and sustainability-related material to CENS 307 – Witches: Myth & Reality, a course that concentrates on witchcraft discourses primarily in medieval and early modern Europe. We aim to survey scholarship and sources related to these cultural topics with the objective of creating new teaching materials for lectures, assignment prompts, and resources for student research, incorporating climate-focused information, linking the content to environmental stewardship, caring treatment of the Earth, and efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. Spiritual practices like witchcraft and magic become examples of the means by which humans can cope with climate grief and the desire to care for the planet.