The Toronto Climate Observatory invites undergraduate students from any department or unit to apply for the inaugural Toronto Climate Summer School (TCSS) in 2024. This intensive, full-credit course, designated as ENV465Y1, spans six weeks from May 6-June 14, 2024. The TCSS addresses a pressing and unmet need for comprehensive pedagogy, emphasizing interdisciplinarity, applied impact, and climate justice.
The course will run from 9am-5pm Monday through Friday. Students will participate in coursework, tutorials, workshops, and site visits in the first three weeks, while focusing on faculty-supervised research for the duration of the second three weeks. Students will therefore dedicate up to approximately 8-10 hours on research projects in the first three weeks, and up to 32 hours per week on research projects in the second three weeks. Final projects will be due by mid-June and presented as part of a symposium being organized by the School of the Environment and the Toronto Climate Observatory in late June. Prospective students and faculty mentors are welcome to coordinate prior to applying about pursuing the research component of the TCSS together, and can indicate this in the application.
Lectures will cover varied topics crucial for understanding climate change in the local context, ranging from Toronto’s role as a settler colonial urban center to insights into the city’s mining and extraction complex, along with discussions on housing and food justice. Tutorials will focus on concepts and learning integration as well as skill development. During the first half of the course, students will also begin working on faculty-sponsored research projects, which they will then work on full-time in the second half. This hands-on approach ensures a comprehensive understanding and application of the knowledge gained. Additionally, students will participate in local site visits, providing valuable opportunities to learn directly from active, local groups, and organizations in the Greater Toronto Area.
Call for Students – Application Deadline: 11:59pm on February 16, 2024
TCSS is a full 1.0 Y course, open to students from any major/division. The class seeks to equip students with integrated physical and social science and humanities perspectives on climate change in Toronto. In addition to a rounded academic learning experience, students will also gain place-based knowledge, research skills and experience, and awareness of ongoing local sites, organizations, and campaigns related to climate justice in Toronto. In joining an intensive, six-week course, students will contribute to and participate in an engaged interdisciplinary cohort learning ways to confront contemporary climate crises together.
Please find the application here.
Students will be notified of results in late February, 2024. We look forward to reading your applications!
For more details, contact: Robert Soden at soden@cs.toronto.edu
We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Toronto Climate Observatory operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.