Browse the list of 2026 funded projects to learn more about how climate change and wellbeing content is being integrated into UBC courses.
Faculty of Arts (UBC Vancouver)
Climate Change in Historical Perspective: Integrating Climate Change into Global History
Lead: John Christopoulos (Department of History)
Co-applicant(s): Eagle Glassheim, Tina Loo, Pheroze Unwalla
This project will integrate climate change and environmental history into HIST112: Global History from the 15th to the 20th Century and HIST113: Global History Since 1900. These courses introduce students to the political, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual transformations that shaped the modern world from the fifteenth century to the present.
The Right to the Digital City: Critical Digital Literacy, Spatial Empathy, and Climate Wellbeing in Urban Geography
Lead: Siobhán Wittig McPhee (Department of Geography)
This course will equip students to analyze the digital city through a Lefebvrian right-to-the-city lens, including climate dimensions. It will also help students develop critical digital literacy as a form of urban citizenship, cultivate spatial empathy as an analytical and wellbeing capacity, integrate climate justice into urban geographical practice, and consolidate the design thinking scaffold built across the four-year urban geography sequence.
Reimagining the Sociology of Family Course through Wellbeing-Centered Climate Education
Lead: Oral Robinson (Department of Sociology)
Co-applicant(s): Silvia Bartolic
This project intends to integrate climate change and wellbeing content into SOCI 200 with two new interdisciplinary teaching modules on the intersections of family and climate change. It also aims to develop assessments using flexible and multimodal approaches, support student wellbeing and resilience through pedagogical strategies, and create sustainable and transferable resources, including an open-access webpage and OER resources.
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (UBC Okanagan)
Preparing the Next Generation of Behavioural Health Professionals: Integrating Climate Change and Wellbeing into Health Psychology Curriculum
Lead: Lesley Lutes
This project aims to integrate climate change and health curriculum into PSYO 520: Behavioural Health Psychology and Illness and PSYO 348: Health Psychology. It will be grounded in a biopsychosocial framework and will expand content to address physical and mental health consequences of climate change, climate-driven health disparities, and psychosocial strategies for resilience and adaptation.
Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Stewardship (UBC Vancouver)
Balancing Culture, Environment, and Commerce: A Haida Grounded Canvas for Climate Engaged Social Innovation
Lead: Ewan Fraser Earl (Haida Gwaii Institute)
Co-applicant(s): Carrie Anne Vanderhoop
This project for HGSE 383 looks to deepen students' engagement with climate justice and climate economics as experienced on Haida Gwaii. It aims to help students weigh culture, environment, and commerce when designing a social innovation, and support student wellbeing with tools for action, that foster a sense of agency instead of distress.
FACULTY OF FORESTRY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP and FACULTY OF LAND AND FOOD SYSTEMS (UBC VANCOUVER)
Hidden Climate Systems: Integrating Soil Biodiversity, Microbiomes, Human Wellbeing, and Systems Thinking into Soil Biology Education
Lead: Zelalem Taye (Applied Biology, and Department of Forest & Conservation Sciences)
This project will integrate climate change and wellbeing content into APBI 342/FRST 310 through the lens of soil biodiversity and microbiomes. It also aims to connect soil processes with climate adaptation, mitigation, and human health through systems-thinking. The project will also develop a student-led dialogue on soil biodiversity, public discourse, and policy, create reusable course materials, and foster engagement through agency, evidence, and dialogue.
Faculty of Applied Science (UBC Vancouver)
Beyond Efficiency: Incorporating Climate Impacts and Demand-side Thinking into Materials Engineering Models
Lead: Karthik Akkiraju (Department of Materials Engineering)
This course revision integrates socio-environmental impact assessment and demand-side solutions into material design criteria of the two existing courses: Modelling of Materials Processes and Functional Materials.
FACULTY OF MEDICINE (UBC VANCOUVER)
Playing Through Complexity: A Serious Games Approach to Climate Change Education in Global Health
Lead: Kaylee Byers (School of Population and Public Health)
Co-applicant(s): Veena Sriram, Chelsea Himsworth, Sarah Robinson
This project will develop and implement a game that enhances learning of climate change impacts on global health while supporting student wellbeing through active, reflective, and collaborative learning approaches.
FACULTY OF EDUCATION (UBC VANCOUVER)
Wayfinding Just Climate Solutions for Teachers in Training
Lead: Robert VanWynsberghe (Department of Educational Studies)
Co-applicant(s): Lindsay Cole
This project will implement a 9-hour WJCS module in EDST 401 that equips teacher candidates with foundational knowledge, pedagogical strategies, and practical resources for integrating climate action and climate justice into K–12 classrooms, while attending to their wellbeing and that of the students they educate.
Climate Change and Wellbeing in Health, Outdoor and Physical Education (HOPE)
Lead: Stephen McGinley (Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy)
Co-applicant(s): LeAnne Petherick, Shawn Forde
This project will revise course content in the Health, Outdoor and Physical Education (HOPE) program by strengthening connections between climate change and wellbeing education in two courses – EDCP 326: Health Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy, a required B.Ed. course for secondary HOPE teacher candidates, and EDCP 508: Current Research in Physical Education, a graduate course.