Education and Learning

What does participation look like?

I had one class during my PhD where I remember being graded on participation. I spoke in every class. Jumped through every hoop. Except, I often spoke to disagree (with references to support my position) with the perspective shared by the instructor or the readings they had selected. I missed two classes during the semester, … Continue reading →

Perhaps it’s an equity issue?

What are your beliefs about aptitude? Can someone who isn’t naturally skilled at math learn and improve and reach the same level of expertise or even surpass someone who has a natural aptitude through time and commitment? What about time management, if someone submits an assignment a day late because they had to pick up … Continue reading →

Which images of climate change would capture your attention?

I’m quite fascinated by how we use imagery to communicate information and inspire action. In previous projects I have analysed the photographs used in a textbook chapter on climate change – in short, anything negative was clearly foreign and everything positive was obviously local. I even used a photographic method to see how local outdoor … Continue reading →

Indigenous cultures and Indigenous renewable energy projects

I learned about a concept called the third space in my PhD. Coined by Homi Bhabha, the third space, as originally conceived, is a meeting or transition space between post-colonial Power relations and everyday practices. This has been adapted in a number of other contexts. One of these adaptations has been used to describe the … Continue reading →

How much do humans impact floods and droughts?

We know climate change leads to more floods and droughts. We also know that humans can change the flow of streams and rivers. But what happens when we put these two things together? Singh and Basu (2022) investigated seasonal flow in natural and managed watersheds in the US and Canada. A watershed is an area … Continue reading →

Hiding behind multiculturalism

I remember the multicultural day in school. For one day in the year, my classmates got to share parts of their culture and for the rest of the time we studied the Western science, grammar, music, art, and history. This day showed that we were better than many other countries because we embraced other cultures. … Continue reading →

Sustainability needs diverse groups of experts to solve climate change

I teach a course on sustainability challenges. Students work in groups to help community partners with projects relating to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The students come from many different areas of study and collaborate on developing meaningful projects. According to a recent report by Cole et al (2022) working with diverse teams is … Continue reading →

Challenge yourself

The apparent legitimacy of celebration

Sustainable development goals

In my sustainability classes we look at the United Nations sustainable development goals. I think there are positives and negatives with the goals but one of their benefits is that they do introduce a broad perspective on sustainability. With that in mind, I thought that I would connect the different ideas from my posts this … Continue reading →