Education for SDGs in the wider community
McMaster University offers outreach educational activities for our wider community including alumni, local residents and displaced people.
Lager Lectures Online
McMaster’s Lager Lectures are offered to alumni and cover a variety of SDG-related topics, including climate change and the ethics, social and cultural thinking needed to support the SDGs.
The Role of Ethical, Social and Cultural Thinking in Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals with Claudia Emerson is an example of a Lager Lecture.
Another relevant talk was for alumni working in healthcare entitled Peach: A Climate Initiative for the Health Care Sector.
MacChangers
MacChangers offer experiential learning opportunities to students and propose collaborative solutions to the most complex and pressing problems confronting society in the 21st century as identified in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Think Global) and Our Future Hamilton (Act Local) long-term community vision.
The Challenge Areas listed are in alignment with the Our Future Hamilton – Community Vision – the City’s 25-year community vision that helps us to envision how our city will move forward over the next 25 years. It is a result of the culmination of a community visioning process that engaged nearly 55,000 Hamilton residents.
Gandhi Peace Festival
The Gandhi Peace Festival is co-sponsored by the India-Canada Society of Hamilton and Region, the Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University and the City of Hamilton. The purpose of the Gandhi Peace Festival is to promote non-violence, peace, justice; to offer a forum for local peace and human rights organizations; and to build on local interest and engage local communities in a conversation on questions or issues as they emerge locally and globally.
Sustainable Future Program (SUSTAIN)
SUSTAIN is a suite of undergraduate courses focused on sustainability that was created to provide students with opportunities for interdisciplinary, student-led, community-based, and experiential education about sustainability. This program enables students to learn within McMaster University and the Hamilton community, while allowing students to take part in experiential research.
Within SUSTAIN, Tree Equity engages and educates the community by sharing social media posts about the environmental benefits of trees, green infrastructure, and the importance of protecting Hamilton’s urban forest. ACCESS Tech helps remove e-waste from landfills by offering staff, students and community members a place to donate and provide those in need with electronic devices.
Together with a delegation from the University of Birmingham, McMaster hosted a series of public lectures on topics ranging from air pollution, to sustainability and transatlantic collaboration, and inclusive spaces, as part of the Queen’s Baton, in an effort to celebrate research and sport ahead of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
The World University Service of Canada (WUSC) McMaster
The World University Service of Canada (WUSC) McMaster facilitates the sponsorship of refugee students every year and organizes fundraising and awareness events to support education projects in Canada and abroad. WUSC McMaster helps incoming refugee students integrate into campus community with a range of supports, from setting up bank accounts, to navigating public transit and healthcare, to facilitating social connections throughout their time at McMaster.
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: Virtual events at McMaster
McMaster University offers a variety of events and workshops for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation to recognize and commemorate the ongoing and tragic legacy of residential schools in Canada.
Two new funds for students and scholars at risk
After establishing two new funds valued at $800,000, for forcibly displaced students, scholars and researchers, McMaster University launched a campaign in the wider community, asking the community to donate to help refugees and others living in conflict-ridden situations.
Global Engineering Design Studio
The Global Engineering Design Studio is an eight-week, 100% virtual program in which students from across the world collaborate in order to propose innovative solutions to pressing global issues. McMaster, along with McGill University, Monash University, University of Auckland, University of Southern California, University of Toronto, and University College London, have partnered to deliver the Global Engineering Design Studio (GEDS) program. The program allows students from across the world collaborate together to propose innovative solutions to pressing global issues. Over the course of the program, students focus on one of three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have global ramifications. The challenge areas for 2022 were: Clean Water and Sanitation, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and Life on Land.