Accelerating Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Education for the Next Generation of Engineering Professionals

Climate change adaptation knowledge is not yet easily accessible to students in professional programs in Canada. In part, this stems from stringent degree requirements that follow competencies regulated by professional bodies. It may be exacerbated by factors including the interdisciplinary nature of climate change, organizational inertia and disciplinary silos. This paper is based on a project funded by Natural Resources Canada on “Accelerating Climate Change Education for the Next Generation of Professionals”, with an emphasis on climate change adaptation (CCA) skills in Civil and Environmental Engineering, specifically. The project enables action by developing needs-based curriculum and pedagogy that draws on interdisciplinary expertise, and making these frameworks and associated tools available to post-secondary institutions and professional associations Canada-wide through a community of practice. The project research goal is to describe current practices and identify gaps or opportunities for the integration of CCA education into existing Canadian engineering, planning, architecture and accounting programs. The current paper is focused on engineering curricula, with the engineering scope limited to civil and environmental engineering, which at the University of Waterloo and many universities in Canada represents the fields focussed on civil infrastructure.