With the growing recognition of the cascading consequences of climate change, there is an increasing demand for graduate education in climate change impact assessment (CCIA). The goal of the professional Masters program in Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation at UTSC is to help students rapidly transition from undergraduate learners to work-ready professionals.
Instructors in the program are challenged to balance conceptual content with continually evolving and often technical real-world application. One approach to this challenge is making use of new online climate data platforms for non-technical end-users. Many of these platforms provide pre-processed data and off-the-shelf climate indices or variables, allowing students (and professionals) to conduct CCIA without first building sufficient understanding of how such data resources are generated.
In this presentation I will share the work we have been doing at UTSC to develop training resources for CCIA that balance teaching the application of projected climate changes with developing understanding and proficiency in the scientific and technical aspects.
Presented by:
Karen Smith Assistant Professor, Department of Physical and Environmental Science, University of Toronto Scarborough
