EarthWorks at Capilano University brings environmental education to campus through lectures and initiatives. Since 2012, it has connected the campus and local communities on key environmental issues, supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
EarthWorks: Our Mission
Educate and inspire students as well as members of the campus and the local community to understand complex environmental issues from a multi-disciplinary perspective, enabling all to take action for positive change.
Students participating in three lectures and one environmental restoration event per term receive an EarthWorks notation on their transcript. Co-curricular credits can also be earned for volunteer work.
EarthWorks 2026/27: 'Communities of Co-Existence'
This year, EarthWorks takes up the theme of Communities of Co-existence: exploring how we share space, responsibility and care with the other species and communities around us. Last year's Bear-Responsive Knowledge Mobilization series, funded by a WWF-Canada Go Wild Grant, asked how our campus could live safely and respectfully alongside black bears. This year, we carry that question into the ongoing work of living alongside one another on campus, on the land, and in the everyday choices that shape how we coexist.
Through workshops, lectures, field experiences, networking and knowledge mobilization events, EarthWorks will bring the CapU community into conversation about coexistence in practice, from human-wildlife relationships to the shared systems we build with neighbouring communities. We'll ask what it takes to make room for other species, sustain relationships across differences and build structures that support coexistence over the long term.
Building on Bear-Responsive Knowledge Mobilization
Communities of Co-existence on Capilano University Campus: Bear-Responsive Knowledge Mobilization helped students, employees and community members learn to share the landscape safely and respectfully with local wildlife. Supported by a WWF-Canada Go Wild Grant, the project brought together habitat restoration, wildlife education and experiential learning for students. Participants restored wildlife habitat through native plantings, took part in campus stewardship activities and helped develop educational resources on bear behaviour and human-wildlife coexistence. This work continues to shape EarthWorks programming this year.
A WWF-Canada Living Campus
Capilano University was named a World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF-Canada) Living Campus for the 2025-26 academic year, the first university in British Columbia to receive the designation. The certification recognizes post-secondary institutions that show leadership in conservation, sustainability and environmental engagement. CapU earned this designation through a range of sustainability and conservation initiatives led by EarthWorks.
Student leadership
Students shape EarthWorks. We are committed to ensuring students have autonomy, influence and choice in both our immediate programming and the long-term vision of our collective. EarthWorks is funded through Capilano University Creative Activity, Research, and Scholarship (CARS) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Mobilize Grant. This funding provides faculty teaching releases and employs two student Research Assistants each year, who plan and run sustainability knowledge mobilization events and help develop our student engagement initiatives.
Become a WWF-Canada Living Planet Leader
CapU students can earn WWF-Canada’s Living Planet Leader certification, a self-guided program that recognizes sustainability and conservation work on campus and in the wider community. Students complete actions in four areas: volunteerism, personal sustainability practices, sustainability in their academic work, and leadership and teamwork.
Many EarthWorks activities, from habitat restoration plantings to helping organize events, can count toward the certification, and activities completed since the start of your post-secondary studies can be submitted. Certified Living Planet Leaders are recognized nationally on the WWF-Canada Living Planet @ Campus website and can list the certification on their resume and LinkedIn.
Learn more and sign up for Living Planet Leader, or connect with EarthWorks for support getting started.
Tell us what matters to you
What environmental issues matter most to you? What events and initiatives would serve our community? Reach out to EarthWorks coordinators Caroline Dingle and Nancy van Groll with your ideas and feedback.
We acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
Nous remercions le Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada (CRSNG) de son soutien.
