COP26 talks: Green curriculum and balancing biodiversity

Greening the curriculum and balancing biodiversity with food security was the theme of the second in our series of four COP26 talks reflecting how our world-leading research is contributing to climate policy and climate action, and how our institutional policies and actions are contributing to our community, campus and local environment.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Parveen Yaqoob was joined by Amanda Callaghan, Professor of Invertebrate Zoology, and Deepa Senapathi, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development.

Introducing the session, Parveen said, “For the next generation of students, the impact of climate change will be their lived reality, so we need to equip them with the skills and knowledge they will need.

“Amanda is the University Lead for the Education strand of the Environmental Sustainable Strategy and has been consulting widely to understand how we can embed sustainability right across our teaching activity.”

Amanda Callaghan’s presentation focused on ‘Greening the curriculum’. She said, “The greening of the curriculum is not limited to environmental issues alone. It is the business of everybody and all subjects really need to see how they can embed it within their programme. Our Strategy also talks about embedding sustainability across our curriculum and our staff training programme. We want colleagues to talk to us about how we can bring about this change by working together.”

Deepa Senapathi, who is attending the COP26 in Glasgow, spoke about ‘The choices we make! Balancing conservation priorities with food security needs’. She said: “The intensive agriculture that characterises the post-war era and our need to feed 7 billion-plus people on the planet has meant that there is a lot of difficulty in how we manage our land and balance biodiversity conservation. There is also a bigger aspect of what the carbon footprint of our food systems are.”

A video recording of the event can be accessed below

The video can also be accessed directly on Microsoft Stream

The upcoming talks in the series are:

Thursday 4 November – Changing the way we live

• Professor Kathy Pain (Real Estate and Planning): Sustainability in the future city 
• Dan Fernbank (Energy & Sustainability Director): Sustainability on campus: Net zero carbon by 2030

Chair: Adrian Bell, Research Dean (Prosperity & Resilience)

Thursday 11 November – Reflections on COP26 and action at local level

• Speaker Professor Bill Collins (Meteorology): Reflections on COP26: Outcomes and next steps
• Professor Tim Dixon (Built Environment): Local action for climate change

Chair: Professor Dominik Zaum, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation)

All talks will take place from 13:00 to 13:50 on Teams. An invite will be sent closer to the time.