Highlights from the Climate Foundation Professional Learning Workshop
Columbia Climate School offers professional learning workshops for wanting working professionals and adult learners Develop new skills and explore new topics to promote their work-related interests. These products help participants understand climate and sustainability challenges through the expertise of Columbia University faculty and researchers who teach in our degree programs. Professional learning opportunities cover a range of cutting-edge sciences in flexible distance seminar formats.
Tawhid Monzur is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Science and Management at the Independent University of Bangladesh. He attended our Spring 2021 Climate Foundation workshop.
If you are interested in learning more about our Spring 2022 offerings, please visit our website. This spring, we launched Decarbonization: State and Company Policy and Practice seminar by Martin Dietrich Custom and perinto ledano, and a Polar Warming and Melting Ice Sheets: Fundamentals of the Cryosphere, Global Change and Implications for Coastal Communities seminar by David Porter. An information session for the Decarbonization Symposium will be held on January 19 at 5:30pm ET; you can reply here. An information session for the Polar Warming Symposium will be held on February 2 at 5:30pm ET; you can reply here.
As we continue to provide these opportunities, we have met great learners who are committed to learning with the community of professionals who support us, and with our experts. Below, Tawhid Monzur, a Spring 2021 Professional Learning Participant, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Science and Management, Bangladesh Independent University, shares his feedback on the Climate Foundation workshop, and what he learned from the workshop. how his knowledge and experience advanced his career and interests. Tawhid’s additions to his own agency on the basis of the workshop have increased climate knowledge among the staff of a major national climate concern organization in Bangladesh, International Centre for Climate Change and Development, who are taking Tawhid’s courses later in 2021.
What seminars have you attended and what particularly attracted you to this seminar?
In the spring of 2021, I attended a workshop on climate fundamentals directed by two prolific scholars and researchers [Lisa Goddard and Simon Mason] from the International Institute for Climate and Society at the Columbia Climate Institute to better understand how changes in a region’s climate conditions over time are determined. This workshop caught my attention because I wanted to gain insight into climate modelling, and what lecturers and other attendees from different professional backgrounds have to say about climate change, which I thought would be interesting.
What are the most valuable skills and tools you gained from this workshop?
The workshop led me to experience in articulating complex ideas and knowledge in layman terms. This will definitely help me convey complex concepts to my own students in an understandable way. Other skills I gained from the workshop include a renewed enthusiasm for studying climate science and meteorology, the ability to decipher complex graphs and images, and enhanced thinking skills, all of which are critical to my advancing research and better development teaching method.
What is your current role and what are the responsibilities of this role?
Currently, I am a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Science and Management, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Independent University of Bangladesh. The department’s mission is in sync with the University’s overall mission to achieve sustainable economic growth and volunteerism through classroom, laboratory and field education, hands-on learning, academic research, professional service, and community building relationships between the community and the University. As a lecturer, I am responsible for teaching, training and equipping students with relevant real-world skills through video literature analysis, roundtable discussions and debates, frequent field trips, and hands-on geospatial analysis and data evaluation and discussion. In addition to developing the curriculum, I also work on research projects aimed at improving our understanding of the population and employment structure of the Greater Dhaka region through the use of geospatial technologies, contributing to regional urban policy, and paving the way for future research on local climates Belt and its impact in urbanized areas of Bangladesh.
What was the biggest highlight of this workshop?
The Climate Fundamentals workshop covers a variety of topics including climate measurement tools, Earth’s energy budget, weather forecasting and forecasting, and interpretation and interpretation of climate data. In my opinion, the most interesting topic is computer simulated climate models in predicting changes in average weather patterns in relation to human intervention at the global and local levels, which the instructor has covered very well. Using the concept of climate modelling, I intend to start a project to identify local climate zones in different urban areas of Bangladesh for the long-term sustainability of urban growth and development in the country.
