Urban Transformation

Urban Transformation approaches to mitigating climate change and their relationship with education, environmental racism, and community participation.

This site also seeks to investigate, and illuminate, new and existing resources relating to urban transformation approaches that are aimed at mitigating climate change and tackling issues related to environmental racism. This encompasses sustainable urban planning, green infrastructure, equitable transportation services, community-driven initiatives, and the ease of access and availability of these resources within marginalized communities or racialized areas. All of the above will be presented alongside educational resources aimed at providing a learning platform and framework for introducing these topics and their potential solutions or resources within an educational context. We believe that education and learning spaces are integral to how individuals become acquainted to the resources that are available to them, and to the systems that surround their lives, and educators need every opportunity to incorporate their choices on these subjects into their pedagogy:

 “When educators, individually and collectively, become aware of the power of choice, they can examine specific aspects of their practice to identify current realities, their vision for the future, and ways of moving their instructional practice in productive directions” (Cummins, 2015, p.132).

This conscious decision to incorporate and integrate the resources surrounding urban development and environmental racism that we plan on hosting and investigating on this site is what we believe to be the first step towards generating a learning environment that helps learners and educators alike actualize their first steps towards environmental justice and sustainability. 

References:

Cummins, J., & Early, M. (2015). Big ideas for expanding minds: Teaching English language learners across the curriculum. Pearson Canada Incorporated.