The Sustainability Hub and the Office of Wellbeing Strategy congratulate the recipients of the 2026 Climate Change and Wellbeing Education grants!
Climate Change in Historical Perspective: Integrating Climate Change into Global History
Department of History, Faculty of Arts
Lead: John Christopoulos
Co-applicant(s): Eagle Glassheim, Tina Loo, Pheroze Unwalla
This project will integrate climate change and environmental history into HIST112: Global History from the 15th to the 20th Century and HIST113: Global History Since 1900. These courses introduce students to the political, social, economic, cultural, and intellectual transformations that shaped the modern world from the fifteenth century to the present.
Beyond Efficiency: Incorporating Climate Impacts and Demand-side Thinking into Materials Engineering Models
Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science
Lead: Karthik Akkiraju
This course revision integrates socio-environmental impact assessment and demand-side solutions into material design criteria of the two existing courses Modelling of Materials Processes and Functional Materials.
Playing Through Complexity: A Serious Games Approach to Climate Change Education in Global Health
School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine
Lead: Kaylee Byers
Co-applicant(s): Veena Sriram, Chelsea Himsworth, Sarah Robinson (SFU)
This project will develop and implement a game that enhances learning of climate change impacts on global health while supporting student wellbeing through active, reflective, and collaborative learning approaches.
Balancing Culture, Environment, and Commerce: A Haida Grounded Canvas for Climate Engaged Social Innovation
Haida Gwaii Institute, Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Stewardship
Lead: Ewan Fraser Earl
Co-applicant(s): Carrie Anne Vanderhoop
This project for HGSE 383 looks to deepen students' engagement with climate justice and climate economics as experienced on Haida Gwaii. It aims to help students weigh culture, environment, and commerce when designing a social innovation, and support student wellbeing with tools for action, that foster a sense of agency instead of distress.
Preparing the Next Generation of Behavioural Health Professionals: Integrating Climate Change and Wellbeing into Health Psychology Curriculum
Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC Okanagan
Lead: Lesley Lutes
This project aims to integrate climate change and health curriculum into PSYO 520: Behavioural Health Psychology and Illness and PSYO 348: Health Psychology. It will be grounded in a biopsychosocial framework and will expand content to address physical and mental health consequences of climate change, climate-driven health disparities, and psychosocial strategies for resilience and adaptation.
The Right to the Digital City: Critical Digital Literacy, Spatial Empathy, and Climate Wellbeing in Urban Geography
Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts
Lead: Siobhán Wittig McPhee
This course will equip students to analyze the digital city through a Lefebvrian right-to-the-city lens, including climate dimensions. It will also help students develop critical digital literacy as a form of urban citizenship, cultivate spatial empathy as an analytical and wellbeing capacity, integrate climate justice into urban geographical practice, and consolidate the design thinking scaffold built across the four-year urban geography sequence.
Reimagining the Sociology of Family Course through Wellbeing-Centered Climate Education
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts
Lead: Oral Robinson
Co-applicant(s): Silvia Bartolic
This project intends to integrate climate change and wellbeing content into SOCI 200 with two new interdisciplinary teaching modules on the intersections of family and climate change. It also aims to develop assessments using flexible and multimodal approaches, support student wellbeing and resilience through pedagogical strategies, and create sustainable and transferable resources, including an open-access webpage and OER resources.
Wayfinding Just Climate Solutions for Teachers in Training
Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education
Lead: Robert VanWynsberghe
Co-applicant(s): Lindsay Cole
This project will implement a 9-hour WJCS module inEDST 401 that equips teacher candidates with foundational knowledge, pedagogical strategies, and practical resources for integrating climate action and climate justice into K–12 classrooms, while attending to their wellbeing and that of the students they educate.
Hidden Climate Systems: Integrating Soil Biodiversity, Microbiomes, Human Wellbeing, and Systems Thinking into Soil Biology Education
Applied Biology, Faculty of Land and Food Systems, and Department of Forest & Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry & Environmental Stewardship
Lead: Zelalem Taye
This project will integrate climate change and wellbeing content into APBI 342/FRST 310 through the lens of soil biodiversity and microbiomes. It also aims to connect soil processes with climate adaptation, mitigation, and human health through systems-thinking. The project will also develop a student-led dialogue on soil biodiversity, public discourse, and policy, create reusable course materials, and foster engagement through agency, evidence, and dialogue.
Climate Change and Wellbeing in Health, Outdoor and Physical Education (HOPE) – Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy
Faculty of Education
Lead: Stephen McGinley
Co-applicant(s): LeAnne Petherick, Shawn Forde
This project will revise course content in the Health, Outdoor and Physical Education (HOPE) program by strengthening connections between climate change and wellbeing education in two courses – EDCP 326: Health Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy, a required B.Ed. course for secondary HOPE teacher candidates, and EDCP 508: Current Research in Physical Education, a graduate course.
Learn more about the Climate Change & Wellbeing Education Program here.