Three (3) required courses
TCA 210: Introduction to the Human Dimensions of Climate Change
Examines a range of understandings of and approaches to addressing climate change, exploring: what kind of problem(s) it poses; what toolkits we need to develop to engage it effectively; how to collaborate across diverse understandings of and priorities in relation to it and what scales and kinds of actions should be prioritized.
Next offered: September, 2025 and January, 2026 (online)
TCA 310: Transformative Change
Introduces skills needed to support planning and decision-making about climate action under conditions of uncertainty, with particular attention to assessing sites for and implications of specific interventions. Emphasis placed on skills of risk analysis and anticipatory management, collaborative planning for diverse goals, and decision-making with sometimes contradictory and diverse forms of knowledge.
Next offered: September, 2025 (online)
TCA 320: Politics, Policies and Planning for Climate Action
Uses British Columbia as a case study to introduce the policy and political contexts that shape climate action across scales from local to global, including relevant institutional and governance innovations. Emphasis placed on skills and strategies for engaging and overcoming stagnation and polarization; developing strategies that are responsive to climate science as well as social and ecological impacts, and effective communication.
Next offered: January, 2026 (online)
Four (4) electives
TCA 405: Allyship, Solidarity and Transforming Relations
Focuses on theory and practices to help us build alliances powerful enough to transform systems. Settler colonialism and capitalism have damaged relationships with land and with each other. As we seek to build strong alliances towards climate justice, we need to be unlearning white supremacy, hierarchy and dominance and learning to build trust, reciprocity, and accountability.
Next offered: May, 2025 (online and in-person)
TCA 410: Indigenous-led Climate Action
Explores Indigenous understandings of and responses to climate change, with a particular emphasis on developing skills for respectful and effective collaboration in support of Indigenous priorities.
TCA 415: Adaptation Planning and the Built Environment
Focuses on skills and strategies for urban and regional planning in the context of a rapidly-changing climate, including appropriate use of downscaled climate models to guide adaptation planning.
Next offered: September, 2025 (online)
TCA 420: Water Futures: Collaborative Responses to Climate Impacts
Explores how governance is evolving to address the impacts of climate change on freshwater regimes, including cycles of drought, fire, and floods, with a particular emphasis on collaborative governance.
Next offered: January, 2026 (online)
TCA 425: Organizing for Transformative Change
Focuses on concepts, skills and practices for organizing transformational change, including strategic landscape analysis, effective communications and alliance-building strategies, and navigating cultural and institutional impediments to change.
Next offered: January, 2026 (online)
TCA 430: Future Ecosystems and Communities
Focuses on the interface between communities and the ecosystems that support them, developing skills and approaches for designing mitigation and adaptation strategies that support mutual flourishing, including adaptive management, ecological restoration, and nature-based solutions.
Next offered: September, 2025 (online)
TCA 480: Special Topics in Transformative Climate Action
Presents selected topics in an emerging field related to transformative climate action or one not covered in regular offerings.
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TOPIC TITLE: Psychology of Transformative Climate Action
This course introduces students to the psychology of systemic, collective, and individual-level climate action. It will provide students with the tools to: integrate psychological perspectives into climate action strategies, collaborate effectively with interdisciplinary solution-seekers, critically assess existing psychological strategies, and adopt a hopeful vision of climate action.
Next offered: January 2026 (in-person)
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TOPIC TITLE: Political Ecology: Changemaking Skills for Thriving Communities
This community engaged course will introduce you to real local examples of successful social and environmental changemaking projects and the people who led them. Explore what has made these initiatives successful, consider how those lessons translate into the contemporary landscape, and build skills to help you find your place in movements for thriving communities. Students will contribute to a real community need and host a changemaker gathering as part of this course. NOTE: This gathering will occur Friday and Saturday February 20-21, 2026 and attendance is required.
Offered January 2026 (in-person)
TCA 490: Practicum in Transformative Climate Action
An opportunity to apply evolving of transformative climate action skills to field-based practice through placement with an organization, community group, or service. Involves a minimum of 100 hours of professional practice activity.
Students may also choose from the following UVic elective courses:
- ADMN 330: Indigenous Approached to Governance in Canada
- ADMN 331: Governance for Planetary Health (online and in person)
- ADMN 462: Intergovernmental Relations in Canada (online)
- ECON 383: Climate Economics
- EOS/GEOG 130: Climate Change
- ENSH 306: Communicating for the Environment
- ES 378: Leadership Skills for Change
- ES 405: Climate, Energy and Politics
- ES 411: Environmental Solutions
- ES/EOS 365: Climate and Society
- ES 314/PHIL 333: Philosophy and the Environment
- GNDR 337: Climate Migration
- PHIL 390: Philosophy and Climate Change
- POLI 357: Canadian Environmental Politics
- PSYC 326: The Environmental Psychology of Places and the World
- SOCI 437: Issues in Environmental Sociology and Climate Change
Contact the program coordinator for more information on applying.
