CC-RAI is proud to share our report on the acitvities of two climate change working groups, one focused on climate change literacy and the other on interdisciplinary collaboration and capacity building for research and action on climate change. CC-RAI would like to acknowledge the support of the office for Research and Innovation as well as the many faculty and students who participated as members of our climate change working groups.

Despite existing commitments, a broad array of faculty and students chose to take part in this pilot project. They have included faculty and students from the Faculty of Science and Engineering (Atmospheric Sciences and Chemistry), the Faculty of Environmental Studies, the Department of Geography, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Laboratory of Mathematical and Parallel Systems (LAMPS), the School of Information Technology, and the School of Administrative Studies. We would also like to thank members from Learning for Sustainable Futures (LSF) and Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) for taking part in this initiative.

One of the working groups focused on developing a draft climate change literacy toolkit which addresses a broad range of topics – from an overview of climate change and extreme weather to a discussion of climate change adaptation and the perception of climate change in the media. The current draft of the toolkit represents a working compilation of submissions by the working group. The next revision of the toolkit will focus on harmonizing the various voices of the authors and cohesively improving the overall quality and readability of the material presented. At a recent meeting of the working group the decision was also made to revise the current draft as a resource for teachers wishing to discuss climate change with their students. Subsequent versions for parents and students would be another option. Additional details on this discussion are provided in the workshop report section of the report. Moreover, the revised sections of the text will be incorporated into the online component of the project – a dedicated Tumblr blog entitled Collaborating for Climate Change Literacy.  

With respect to the interdiscplinary collaboration project, between December and mid-February,  an on-line survey was distributed to faculty and graduate students engaged in climate change research. Research Officers and Associate Deans of Research helped to publicize the questionnaire and encourage responses from their faculty. At the same time, CC-RAI contacted researchers from its existing database to complete the survey. Once the data were collected and analyzed, computer programs have been developed to identify connections among participants and summary reports were prepared pertaining to the project. A preliminary network of researchers with interests in climate change research was created to determine the connections and potential for collaboration between researchers. The next interation of the project will focus on bringing faculty and researchers together to work on joint climate change research initiatives in both the social and natural sciences.

If you would like to know more about these projects or take part in one of the working groups we would be glad to hear from you. The current phase of the project has led to a range of potential follow-up projects, CC-RAI will keep you posted. Once again we would like to thanks those individuals who took part in the project to date.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration Working Group: Marina Erechtchoukova (Co-chair, School of Information Technology, LAPS), Rachel Hirsch (Co-chair, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Post-Doctoral Fellow), Susan Chalmers (Faculty of Environmental Studies, CC-RAI Graduate Assistant), Jessica Notwell (Faculty of Environmental Studies, CC-RAI Graduate Assistant), Osama Askoura (International Work Study Student) 

Climate Literacy Working Group: Rick Bello (LAPS – Geography), Shishir Handa (Co-chair, LAPS – Geography), Monica Vaswani (Co-chair, LAPS – Geography), Georges Monette (Math & Stats), Walter Whiteley (Math & Stats, Education), Hassan Qudrat-Ullah (LAPS – School of Administrative Studies), Masao Ashtine (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Kristina Delidjakova (LAPS – Geography), Bernhard Isopp (Science and Technology Studies), Matthew MacLean (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Jennet Poffenroth (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Aaron Saad (Faculty of Environmental Studies), Diego Alejandro Sotomayor (LAPS – Geography), Janine Baijnath (University of Waterloo), Amit Lahiri (Centennial College, MES Alumni), Christina Wong (University of Toronto).

Tags: Capacity Building, Climate Change Literacy, Climate Is No Small Talk, Climate Research, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Tumblr, York University

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2012 at 2:59 pm and is filed under Climate Literacy and Interdsciplinary Collaboration, Current Projects, Funding, Guest Blog, News, Research Projects, Wrap-Up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.