WATCH: Giving students the tools to create a greener planet

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• Students choose from one of four areas of concentration
• Indigenous course will be part of curriculum
• First intake of students will be in September 2022

UBCO’s new Bachelor of Sustainability (BSust) degree is the first of its kind in Canada, and will give students the tools needed to create a greener planet.

BSust is a four-year direct-entry program that teaches students to address complex environmental challenges by pairing knowledge from different academic subjects, with hands-on and community-based learning.

“With this program, if students are really keen and interested in sustainability, who also want to make a difference and engage directly in environmental learning and education… then they can do that coming right out of high school," inaugural director and professor Dr. Kevin Hanna told Kelowna10.

The program gives students the ability to choose from one of four concentrations - environmental analytics, environmental conservation and management, environmental humanities or green chemistry - allowing for a narrowed focus on a specific form of sustainability.

This grants a detailed insight into not only their chosen field of sustainability, but also the effects of climate change within it.

“Climate change is, I think it’s fair to say, the defining environmental issue of our time,” Hanna said. “It will shape so much of our decision making going forward. It is reshaping our forest landscape here in British Columbia, it is affecting wildlife, it is affecting water resources… [and] it permeates everything that we do and think about."

The curriculum of the program will vary depending on what concentration a student chooses, but one thing every student will take part in is a mandatory Indigenous studies course.

“[This] provides exposure to ideas, to information, to the concerns and the needs that Indigenous peoples and their governments have in Canada,” Hanna said.

“I don't think you can work in environmental issues today in this country without having a good strong foundation or understanding of Indigenous issues, Indigenous cultures, but also very importantly the history of Indigenous peoples in our country.”

The new program aims to give students not only the critical thinking skills to help protect the future of the planet, but also the tools needed to be successful for life after school.

“We live in really difficult and perilous times environmentally, and we need people who are going to go forward and make those needed changes sooner rather than later,” Hanna said. “Because putting off dealing with them for another ten or fifteen years - it’s not feasible and it’s just not realistic anymore."

The program will accept its first intake of students in September 2022.