Students educating students about climate change

Written By Peter Allan

Juliana Janot at Starfish Canada’s Youth Environmental Changemakers Summit, where she had the idea for the CEFA network. Photo by Hyago Moreira

 

By Patricia Lane & Emma Rae Lierley

Juliana Janot wants all post-secondary students to understand climate change. This 20-year-old University of British Columbia student co-founded Climate Education for All (CEFA) (@climateeducation4all on Instagram) to make sure every student is educated about the causes and impacts of the climate crisis and its solutions.

Tell us about your project.

A friend, who is an engineering student, recently asked me if climate change was real! He never had a class of any kind on it and really did not know. But he wants to. So, I launched the Climate Education for All (CEFA) campaign at UBC, with co-organizers Taylor Nitzsche and Professor Fernanda Tomaselli. The 2,000 UBC undergraduates we surveyed overwhelmingly support including climate education in their programs. CEFA has already secured this commitment from the deans of the UBC faculties of Forestry, Land and Food Systems, and the School of Nursing. These will serve as models and inspiration for the remainder of UBC.

I attended Starfish Canada’s Youth Environmental Changemakers Summit and recruited students from across Canada to launch campaigns at their own schools. The CEFA network will ask post-secondary institutions everywhere to educate and empower a generation of climate-conscious professionals to make actionable change. We are currently active at the University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University, University of Guelph, University of Calgary, Okanagan College, Mount Allison University, Acadia University and University of British Columbia. We have international interest too, and CEFA now includes Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and most recently, IPB University Indonesia. We are just getting started…

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Peter Allan
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