2019 DL Symposium

Climate change has been called the greatest challenge of our time, threatening communities around the world and driving massive transitions in this century. The recent IPCC report – Global Warming of 1.5°C gives us only 12 years to respond aggressively in reducing carbon emissions, if we are to avoid dangerous climate change impacts. Canadian policies at all levels of government (e.g. Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan) call for substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (80% by 2050). However, the North American education system is not providing our youth with the substantive solutions-based, learner-led tools they need to engage in and act on climate change (most teachers only spend 1-2 hours a year on the subject).

CALP at UBC has co-designed and tested (with teachers, students & staff at the Vancouver School Board; educational NGO’s; international researchers; municipal/city staff; other educators and general public) several ‘Cool Tools’ that uses innovative social processes and powerful visual and digital media (such as gaming, visualizations, mapping, and hands-on citizen science), that has shown to be very effective in building awareness and stimulating behaviour change among youth.

A DIY toolkit on climate change and urban forestry (Coolkit), a videogame on climate change solutions, and a supplementary Teacher’s Guide are some of the ‘Cool Tools’ that will be presented at this workshop. These 'Cool Tools' bring together a number of enticing educational components:
1. outdoor experiential learning
2. place-based & inquiry-based education
3. student-led learning
4. game development
5. digital & field mapping tools

The tools are tailored to the new BC curriculum & address the 'Big Ideas' & 'Core Competencies' upfront. They have already demonstrated an increase in students’ awareness & understanding of basic climate change, sustainability and urban forestry concepts; and hope to eventually motivate behaviour changes individually and collectively.