In 2026, the science outreach program Think Like A Scientist ran 10 different sessions in 10 different locations around the world, focusing on the simple question of:
How do different communities experience climate change?
Wie erleben verschiedene Gemeinschaften den Klimawandel? (DEU)
In che modo le diverse comunità vivono il cambiamento climatico? (ITA)
كيف تشهد المجتمعات المختلفة تغير المناخ؟ (ARABIC)
Which communities?
We met 4 year olds in Germany, tweens in Switzerland and Canada, teenagers in Italy, and 60-90 year olds in England.
We discussed climate change in prisons in Canada, Finland, and Australia.
We chatted to fishermen in Barbados.
We chatted to people in a refugee camp in Jordan in the Middle East.
This webpage will outline the overall responses of our program participants, as well as how we facilitated the sessions to diverse communities around the world.
However, most of our sessions followed our format of how we teach people to Think Like A Scientist: through discussion and failure (key parts to being a scientist!). Check out the links below to hear about the discussion from our different communities.
(to be updated)
Art as a teaching aid and collaboration piece:
In each of our sessions around the world, we collated the key points of the experience of climate change and shared with an artist who created a unique piece of art based on the community discussion. As a result, we have 10 new commissioned art pieces which we also provide below (with discussion on how it was created).
(to be updated)
Meet the team:
For this project, we were able to bring in a number of artists and communicators to facilitate the work around the world:
Top Row (left to right): Fabio Crameri (Instructor and Artist, Switzerland); Alexandra (Instructor, Switzerland); Rosa Rantanen (Instructor and Artist, Finland), Josh Mogyoros (Instructor, Canada); Phoenix and Dalton (Instructor and Artist, England); Kiona Osowski (Instructor, Canada); David Schlaphorst (Instructor and Artist, Germany); Kath (Instructor and Artist, England).
Bottom Row (left to right): Annabelle Foster (Artist, Canada); Aliyah Griffith (Instructor, Barbados); Iain Stewart (Instructor, Jordan); Phil (lead); Roberta Bellini (Instructor, Italy); Lucia Perez-Diaz (Artist, Italy, Canada); Maria Gabriela Tejada Toapanta (Artist); Grace Shephard (collaborator).
Thank you!
We were grateful for the support of the European Geosciences Union (through the Special Activity Fund) and the University of Toronto Scarborough, especially the Finance team within the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences.
Get in touch:
Contact Phil Heron at Philip.heron @utoronto.ca
