Education and Climate Action : Opportunities & Possibilities

In face of the pressing urgency of climate change, education is frequently hailed as key to change our current model of excessive, inequitable, and unsustainable consumption. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see school boards and universities invested in addressing the environmental crisis and its natural and social consequences. The present symposium will discuss how education institutions (through teaching or research and other services they may offer to the community) can foster socio-ecological change to ways of knowing and being that otherwise threaten to extinguish life on the planet. More specifically, what are the responsibility and duties of educators and the institutions they represent in times of climate crisis? What role can equity, diversity and inclusion can play in this scenario?

Program

10am – 10:10am : Opening remarks 

10:10am – 10:40am : Presentation 1 : Dr. Maija Aksela (University of Helsinki, Finland)

10:40am – 11:10am : Presentation 2 : Dr. Xavier Fazio (Brock University, Canada)

11:10am – 11:20am : Break 

11:20am – 11:50am : Round table (with guest mediator: Dr. Tasha-Ann Ausman, University of Ottawa)

11:50am – 12pm : Closing remarks

Dr Maija Aksela: Professor at the University of Helsinki (Finland) with over 30 years of experience in science education. Dr. Aksela is the director of the national LUMA (STEM) Centre in Finland, a science education network of Finnish universities. Her research interests include sustainability and climate change education. She has authored over 400 publications and received many research and teaching awards. In her talk, she will talk about how to promote collaborative climate change education through the LUMA ecosystem, which includes the international teachers' climate change forum.

Dr. Xavier Fazio: Professor of Science Education and Environmental Sustainability Education in the Department of Educational Studies at Brock University (Ontario, Canada). He is also an affiliate member of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) at Brock University. Professor Fazio’s research broadly focuses on science and environmental sustainability education, teacher education and development, curricular innovation, instruction and assessment, and complexity and systems thinking in education. His research in Canada also connects to partnerships with researchers globally and has been supported with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and various government agencies, industry, and educational associations. Currently, he is leading a multi-year Insight Grant from SSHRC examining how to connect school science to local communities using place-based perspectives to better promote meaningful engagement for science students. He has recently published a book titled, Science Curriculum for the Anthropocene, Volume 1, and is editor of a forthcoming Volume 2 of this series, due to be published at the end of this year.