As children and youth across the country head back to school, and schools seek to build relationships with students, families and communities, how are the needs of Black Canadian youth being met?

Today in The Conversation Canada, Tanitiã Munroe of the University of Toronto writes about an innovative approach to engaging Black youth voices that simultaneously serves to create better learning environments, support youth learning and help transform systemic anti-Black racism in schooling.

She writes: “Change is needed in the way Black students’ voices are positioned in education … Authentically empowering student voice requires that educators listen, validate youth knowledge and experience, and respond.”

Also today:

 

Susannah Schmidt

Education + Arts Editor

In the Youth Participatory Action Research program, Black youth take action on issues affecting their lives alongside receptive adults willing to act to support their ideas. (Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages)

Voices of Black youth remind adults in schools to listen — and act to empower them

Tanitiã Munroe, University of Toronto

A leadership program for Black youth sees students participate in research related to their communities and education to propose solutions to issues that affect their lives.

Frost can wreak havoc on a heat pump system and eliminating this risk is a key step in their widespread adoption here in Canada. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen via AP)

New research may point the way towards frost-free heat pumps

Amirreza Mahmoudi, University of Saskatchewan

Heat pumps are essential for the large-scale adoption of more carbon friendly heating systems and recent research suggests a way forward for reducing one of the technology’s biggest hurdles — frost.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin toast during their dinner at the Kremlin in Moscow in March 2023. (Pavel Byrkin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

4 ways to rein in China and Russia, alleged superpower perpetrators of atrocity crimes

Kyle Matthews, Concordia University

The spectacle of two UN Security Council members — China and Russia — allegedly perpetrating mass atrocity crimes is deeply troubling. Here’s how the international community must step up.

Placing vertical solar panels on farming land allows for energy production and higher yields. (Wikimedia Commons)

Mixed-use solar and agricultural land is the silver bullet Alberta’s Conservatives have wished for

Joshua M. Pearce, Western University

Using agricultural land for both solar and food production presents huge opportunities for Canadian farmers, especially in Alberta.

La Conversation Canada

Les impacts sanitaires et économiques de la chaleur sont souvent invisibles et silencieux. (Shutterstock)

Les canicules engendrent des coûts. Voici pourquoi il est important de les quantifier

Jérémie Boudreault, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS); Celine Campagna, Université Laval; Fateh Chebana, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS)

Il est primordial que de nouvelles recherches soient menées afin de quantifier adéquatement les coûts de la chaleur extrême dans l’optique de réduire ses effets délétères actuels et futurs.

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