Curricular

Across UBC, faculty and students are teaching, learning and exploring sustainability through hundreds of courses and programs that look at issues like the climate emergency, biodiversity, food systems, racial equity, and social justice. To encourage students to continue to explore sustainability, UBC curates and promotes a wide range of sustainability learning opportunities via tools like the climate change courses listing. We further support teaching and curriculum innovation through education grants, and the Climate Teaching Connector program.

Climate emergency funding to enhance curriculum

This dataset shows the distribution of Climate Education Grants made by the UBC Sustainability Initiative in the fiscal year 2020-21 to support faculty with the depth and delivery of climate change content and teaching approaches in existing courses.

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Current Performance

vancouver courses

sustainability-related courses at UBC Vancouver

Okanagan Courses

sustainability-related courses at UBC Okanagan

faculties

of faculties at UBC Vancouver offer students sustainability-related courses as part of their program

degree programs

sustainability-related degree programs at UBC Vancouver

departments

of departments at UBC Vancouver offer sustainability-related courses

featured program

Climate Teaching Connector adds climate to more undergrad courses

The Climate Teaching Connector – a collaboration between the UBC Sustainability Initiative and the Climate Hub – is an innovative new program to integrate climate-related content into undergraduate classes by connecting UBC course instructors with climate change and climate justice experts from the UBC community.

During its inaugural year in 2020-21, fifteen climate experts (UBC graduate students and post-doctoral fellows) delivered 22 guest lectures across 18 Departments to 1,357 students.

“The Climate Teaching Connector is a great resource linking learners, faculty and researchers with multidisciplinary perspectives and resources needed to inspire, promote and sustain climate awareness and action.

My undergraduate students in PLAN 331 (The Just City in a Divided World) learned immensely from our guest Climate Expert who gave rich examples on climate vulnerabilities generated from an under-studied region and connected these insights to our other lessons on urbanization, city justice, urban revitalization, and climate migration grounded on histories of colonialism, militarization, and economic development.”

- Dr. Leonora C. Angeles, Associate Professor, SCARP & Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice

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Climate Change Courses

This curated course collection highlights some UBC Vancouver courses to support students from diverse faculties to integrate climate change-related content into their studies.

UBCO launches new Bachelor of Sustainability

The Bachelor of Sustainability combines a broad interdisciplinary approach, with focused concentrations that develop the knowledge and skills of students who want to bring about positive change.

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In depth

Interdisciplinary education grants generate new collaborations

Interdisciplinary Education Grants support UBC Vancouver faculty members to work together to build or refine curriculum on sustainability issues using interdisciplinary approaches. In part, 2020-21 projects engaged with climate change, as well as urban planning, architecture and Indigenous community planning in the context of sustainability.

The chart below illustrates the collaborations created through funding that connects one or more UBC departments to work together on new sustainability related curriculum. Each line represents a specific project that involved collaboration between two departments, and the thickness of the line represents the value of the grant.

Interdisciplinary Education Grants distribution (2018-2021)

Two examples of Interdisciplinary Education Grants that were funded are for a climate themed credential and modules for the Education and Applied Science programs.

In response to student interest in climate-related courses with focus on problem identification and solution building, faculty members Jessica Dempsey and Tara Ivanochko proposed a framework for bringing together students, faculty and staff to develop an interdisciplinary climate themed credential for UBC students. Through broad consultation, the team proposes that two new courses will be piloted in the second year of the project with final approval by June 2022.

Following the launch of the Education for Sustainability Cohort in the Teacher Education Program at UBC, faculty members Allison Earl and Maggie Low are working to develop three new course modules focused on sustainable urban architecture, urban planning and participatory planning pedagogy, and Indigenous community planning. The result of such will represent a unique merger of architecture, planning, and Indigeneity in the context of exploring sustainability.