Students in the inaugural Toronto Climate Summer School learned that climate change is happening everywhere — even in the city of Toronto. (Photo credit: © iStock|Gina Staios.)
University of Toronto undergraduates recently had the opportunity to learn about the realities of climate change happening in their own backyard, through the first-ever session of the Toronto Climate Summer School. The intensive six-week course was co-led by Robert Soden, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Department of Computer Science and School of the Environment.
“Many people think that climate change is still in the future or is only affecting far off places — and that’s simply not true,” says Soden.
“Climate change is happening now and it’s happening everywhere, including in the city of Toronto.”
Soden and Rohini Patel — who received her PhD from the Department of History and was a postdoctoral fellow with the School of the Environment — were co-instructors for the first-ever session of the Toronto Climate Summer School in which second- and third-year students examined the climate crisis from the perspective of a city like Toronto.
Funding for the summer school was provided by U of T’s Learning & Education Advancement Fund. Given the school’s perspective, the course attracted students from a variety of disciplines: computer science and physics, but also the social sciences, humanities and geography.
“Of course, we talked about the floods, wildfires and heatwaves that get so much attention,” says Soden. “But in their projects, the students also looked at how climate change is affecting local agriculture, housing, immigration, labour and migrant justice, as well as how the city copes with weather extremes.”
Elise Corbin is a member of Innis College entering her second year at U of T, working toward a specialist in computer science and minors in mathematics and urban studies.
“I'm hoping to dedicate my computer science skills to combat climate change,” she says. “When I found out about the school I thought, this sounds right up my alley. So I signed up and I'm really glad I did.”
For their climate summer school project, Corbin and her team attempted to identify the sources of emissions of methane — a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 — in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood.
The work was supervised by Debra Wunch, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and the School of the Environment. She monitors greenhouse gas emissions using data from satellites, remote sensing devices in the city and with bicycle-mounted detectors.
“The Junction had a number of methane spikes and nobody knew why,” says Corbin. “So our project was to figure out where they were coming from. We made a bunch of visits to various sites with the bike-mounted methane sensor and also used handheld sensors.”
Eventually, the students determined that the methane was coming from the sewer system. The neighbourhood has an old system — meaning the sewer is connected to the storm drains. Organic matter from the sewers was getting clogged in the pipes and decomposing and methane was bubbling up through the storm drains out into the streets.
This was the first year of a three-year pilot phase for the summer school and while it was very much an experiment, Soden is confident it was a successful one and is already planning changes based on this year’s experience.
“We tried to do something that was different from how climate change has been taught before,” he says. “We had a great group of students that were very game and invested in it, with lots of good classes and discussions. It was a wonderful, really fun experience and I’m looking forward to next year.”