Tag: UN SDG 7

Students take on sustainability challenges at UNHack weekend 

Bergeron-Centre-for-Engineering-Excellence-FEATURED

Lassonde’s Bergeron Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology (BEST) program hosted UNHack 2021 from Nov. 19 to 21. The weekend of experiential learning brought undergraduate students from various post-secondary institutions together to work in teams with high school students from grades 11 and 12. Each team worked on solutions to issues centred around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Chart shows 17 UNSDG goals
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals

“It was truly inspiring to see over 400 students develop creative solutions to local problems that are related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” said Lassonde engineering Professor Andrew Maxwell, who is the Bergeron Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship.  “I cannot wait to see some of these projects come to life.” 

The students were united by a common passion to make a difference and create a better world. Using the design sprint methodology, the students identified local and global problems, brainstormed an impactful solution and built a feasible implementation plan. Teams met for the first time on Friday, began ideating and building their solution on Saturday and presented their solutions to a panel of expert judges on Sunday. 

Participants chose a challenge that aligned with a UN SDG, encompassing a variety of themes including good health and wellbeing (SDG #3), quality education (SDG #4) and sustainable cities and communities (SDG #11). Many challenges focused on solutions to enhance sustainability at York University, such as improving access to healthy food options on campus or keeping students engaged with mental health and well-being supports. These challenges allowed students to see how their ideas can impact the world and make a positive change, even when starting from a local level.  

UNHack is more than just a traditional hackathon, it helps students recognize their own potential. The solutions developed included visuals, drawings and other creative expressions that were not limited to technology. In addition, the experience allowed participants to make friendships, build a professional network and gain crucial soft skills like teamwork, leadership and problem-solving.  

“I often tend to shy away from collaborative work, however this experience allowed me to experience the benefits of brainstorming as a group and learning how to listen to group members,” said Maria Flores, second-year mechanical engineering student. “A big part of engineering is collaborating with others, and I think this experience will benefit me in my future career.” 

In total, 72 projects made it to the preliminary judging round on Sunday morning with the top nine teams making their way to the final judging round. 

A Zoom screen capture of participants in the Opening Ceremony for the UNHack event
Participants in the UNHack opening ceremony

2021 Winning Teams:  

First Place – Team #99: EcoYork (Atmiya Jadvani, Saimanoj Yarasi, Jiafeng Wang) 

Team #99’s addressed SDG #13: Climate Action by developing a solution to reduce the carbon footprint at student residences. They created an application called EcoYork that would encourage students to reduce their eco-footprint through weekly tasks, sustainable challenges and incentives on campus.  

Second Place – Team #11: Food (Justin Chan, Vanessa Ammirante, Crystal Chang, Ananya Manikandan, Mihn Yu) 

Team #11 addressed SDG #2: Zero Hunger by creating a solution to help York University students facing food insecurity. The team developed a Farm-to-Table initiative, which involved partnering with local farms to provide healthy and affordable meals to students on campus.  

Third Place – Team #58: Spiteful Donkeys (Connor Humphries, Isaiah Chun, Deep Panchal, Rebecca John, Ava Yunus) 

Team #58’s addressed SDG #7: Affordable and Clean Energy by pitching a way to make homes more sustainable and energy efficient. The team presented the idea of moulded pulp for envelope insulation (an environmentally friendly way to insulate homes), which promotes low waste and less energy generation.  

People’s Choice Award – Team #71: C1M4 (Eugene Park, Brigette Eleuteri, Maria Flores, Maranath Hormiz, Mehrab Rizwan) 

Team #71 addressed SDG#11: Sustainable Cities and Communitiesby creating a YorkU Nav-E, a user-friendly and accessible application to help students, especially those who are new to the University, to navigate the campus and help ease their transition to in-person studies.  

“It was amazing to see how our students came together to design and create solutions fo sustainability challenges within our community and beyond,” said Maedeh Sadaghat, program officer at BEST. “The UNHack experience has provided our students with an opportunity to develop critical skills that will help them create a more sustainable future.” 

Organizers of UNHack received support from the following external event sponsors: KPM Power, Scotiabank and Summerfresh. University partners supporting the event were: YorkU Sustainability Office, K2I Academy, NSTAMP, SDG Hub, the Centre for Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion, Student Counselling, Health and Well-being as well as from Lassonde Professor Magdalena Krol, Lassonde mentors and the organizing team.

Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change Dean Alice Hovorka and Nicole Arsenault, program director, Sustainability, provided opening remarks at the event. 

Elliott Atkins, Karen Lai, Subashini Kangesan, Nicole Arsenault, Lassonde Professor Usman Khan and Keith Loo served as expert judges.   

Faculty members can co-create community of practice on UN SDGs

United Nations SDGs

Calling all faculty who infuse the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their classrooms!

Provostial Fellow Cheryl van Daalen-Smith is searching across York’s campuses to identify faculty who have begun to find ways to infuse the UN SDGs into their teaching, courses and classrooms. Whether it’s incorporating SDGs though guest lectures, linking SDGs to disciplinary foci and in-class discussions, providing options to students to consider the SDG of an assignment, or other examples of teaching and learning with a UN SDG focus, van Daalen-Smith wants to hear from any and all faculty members.

The goal of the call-out is to co-create a community of practice, and perhaps organize a teach-in, to highlight what is already happening at York and inspire others to “see the SDGs” in their respective areas.

Many faculty members are finding innovative ways to tether their disciplinary/programmatic/course focus to an SDG, or several – with some selecting their relevance by the 3P model of dividing the SDGs up into people, prosperity or planet. Students are reporting a zeal for the ability to consider real-world issues and to look at them through their own disciplinary lens. Faculty members in departments including dance, engineering, nursing, kinesiology, biology, children’s studies, business, and gender, sexuality and women’s studies are already finding ways to tie their existing foci to the SDGs.

Faculty members interested in participating are invited to contact van Daalen Smith as soon as possible by emailing cvandaal@yorku.ca with the subject line “SDGs in my classroom.”

Learning for a Sustainable Future youth program garners top Clean50 award

Photo by Singkham from Pexels

The Virtual Climate Change Youth Forums offered by Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), a Canadian charity located at York University, empower learners in a warming world and encourage youth to take action on the climate.

Students show off their poster created in a LSF Youth Forum sponsored by RBC
LSF Youth Forum participants show off a poster they created

LSF’s Virtual Climate Change Youth Forums program has been named a recipient of Canada’s Clean50 Top Project award. The annual award recognizes the contributions of projects towards a cleaner, healthier, innovation-based, low-carbon economy supporting all Canadians. Clean50 Top Projects were selected from more than 100 nominees, based on their innovation, their ability to inspire other Canadians to take action and, most importantly, their climate-action impact. 

LSF’s Youth Forums have historically been held as full-day, in-person experiences, but due to the impact of the pandemic, LSF decided to move the Youth Forums online.

“We knew that skipping a year wasn’t an option,” says LSF President and CEO Pamela Schwartzberg, “since students needed access to the skills and knowledge provided in the forums. So, LSF created a multi-component virtual event series offered over a six-week period.

“While creating a new delivery model, LSF also had to accommodate various school board privacy policies, teachers who were new to technology and virtual learning, events covering multiple time zones and a myriad of school schedules, and student learning at home, at school or a combination of both,” says Schwartzberg. “Our new Virtual Youth Forums still build a sense of community and connection among teachers and students from different schools. Most importantly, the forums engaged students in climate change issues, equipped them with skills and knowledge, and empowered them to take action.”

The virtual events dramatically increased LSF’s audience and geographic reach, with 17,600 students from all of Canada’s provinces and territories receiving an opportunity to contribute to the fight against climate change by participating in an Action Project.

LSF is a Canadian charity founded in 1991. Working with businesses, governments, school boards, universities, communities, educators and youth across Canada, LSF’s programs and partnerships are helping students learn to address the increasingly difficult economic, social and environmental challenges of the 21st century. LSF has been located at York University since 1997.

Read about LSF’s Virtual Youth Forums by visiting the Clean50 Top Projects website. Registration is open for upcoming Youth Forums. To learn more, visit the Youth Forums web page.

Learn about ‘The Changing Face of Iceland’ at EUC film viewing and panel discussion

Iceland mountain under white clouds

On Oct. 6 at 12 p.m. Eastern Time, join renowned filmmaker Mark Terry, a contract faculty member in York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC), for a film viewing and panel discussion on The Changing Face of Iceland, his new documentary about the impacts of climate change on the island nation of Iceland.

"The Changing Face of Iceland" movie poster. From the director of "The Polar Explorer" and "The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning"

The documentary examines the toll climate change has taken on Iceland’s glaciers, land, flora, fauna, fish, economy and people. The film also includes exclusive footage of the recent eruptions of Fagradalsfjall, an active volcano only 40 kilometres from Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík.

The virtual event will be moderated by EUC Professor and Associate Dean Philip Kelly, with opening remarks from Hlynur Guðjónsson, the ambassador of the Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa.

Panellists include: filmmaker Terry, producer Melanie Martyn and EUC Professor Kathy Young.

Terry is a documentary filmmaker, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an instructor in York’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change. This film completes his trilogy of documentaries revealing the impacts of climate change on the Arctic and Antarctic. The two previous films in the series – The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning (2009) and The Polar Explorer (2011) – have been aired on CBC in Canada and released in the U.S. by PBS, as well as screened at United Nations climate summits.

Martyn makes her documentary film-producing debut with The Changing Face of Iceland. A devoted environmentalist and long-time colleague of Terry’s, she is excited to have been given this opportunity to contribute to his work with the United Nations.

Young is a physical geographer and hydrologist whose work has focused on wetland and snow hydrology in northern Canadian environments. More recently, she has been exploring the impact of dust and volcanic ash on the hydrology of slopes and wetlands in Iceland.

To register for the event, visit bit.ly/3AVRt7o.

Interested in the environment? Join this free conference

Usa globe resting in a forest - environment concept

The Canadian Resource and Environmental Economics Association (CREEA|ACERE) will host its 31st annual conference, sponsored by York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) and the Risk and Insurance Studies Centre, online on Oct. 1 and 2.

The two-day event aims to bring together scholars from across the country and beyond who work in the field of natural resource and environmental economics.

Ida Ferrara, associate professor in York’s Department of Economics, is this year’s conference organizer. Ferrara encourages York students to attend and says, “There is growing awareness of the urgency to collectively engage in positive action to save the planet, and the plea for environmental protection has never been louder.”

While virtual conference engagement can be challenging, this one includes a virtual dinner at the end of the first day, which kicks off the announcement of this year’s CREEA|ACERE Fellows: two scholars who have advanced the profession of environmental and resource economics.

The conference will be valuable to anyone working on, studying or interested in environmental issues. Learn more and register on the conference website.