Seminar Series

Register here and join us for an ITS virtual talk "Counting herons, photographing melting ice: Public participation in climate change research" with Dr. Sarah Blacker (York University) on April 22, 2026 from 12:00 pm till 1:30 pm..

Dr. Sarah Blacker is a Sessional Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University. Her current book project, Warding off Disease: Racialization and Health in Settler Colonial Canada, investigates the relationship between biomedical pronouncements on race and their social repercussions, including ongoing colonial and systemic racist practices.

Amidst cuts to research funding for climate science and the weakening of environmental regulation, public participation in climate change research through citizen science projects -and the data they produce- can provide a critical resource to climate scientists. Public participation in science can address data gaps and counter hierarchies by centering the experiential knowledges of historically marginalized communities; it can also extend a false promise of agency to participants. This talk discusses the study design and methods used by three participatory climate science projetcs, including a community-led project practicing data sovereignty, non-profit, and a public-private partnership. I argue that while these projects can support environmental education and climate justice, the data collected through these projects is sometimes used towards ends that run counter to the aims of the participants.