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H. L. Koh and S. Y. Teh
7 Contribution of STEM
7.1 STEM in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
The 2015 Paris climate change agreement and other sustainability commitments
towards low carbon economies, have created new opportunities in the crossdisciplinary field of “green jobs”. The simplest definition of a green job is one that
reduces the negative impact made on the environment, relative to the status quo. However, a major problem in filling these new green vacancies is the lack of job-specific
skills in STEM and related careers (Bird and Lawton 2009). STEM has immense
application in sustainability-related research and applications. For example, STEM
was instrumental in developing cutting-edge simulation model MANTRA-O18 for
detecting early warning signals regarding regime shift induced by climate change
from glycophytic to halophytic vegetation in coastal wetlands including the Florida
Everglades (Teh et al. 2019). Such regime shifts can have dire consequences on
coastal vegetation and ENR. Early detection of vegetation regime shifts can provide valuable lead time to mitigate or adapt to the impact of climate change. This
early detection involves university-community engagement and interaction at the
local and regional levels, by way of data collection, analysis, synthesis and outreach. This problem-based university-community research collaboration will lead
to solution-oriented actions to protect local coastal resources against the impact of
climate change. Encouraged by the success in the Florida Everglades, similar university community engagement is currently ongoing at a research site in P. Kukup,
Johor, Malaysia, funded by the L’Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship awarded to the second author. Undoubtedly, mathematics is an integral and essential component for
advancing STEM and related research, which is crucial to environmental protection,
economic growth and social justice. This expanding contribution of mathematics
towards STEM, medical sciences, security in water and food could be a beacon to
attract more students in mathematics and STEM to meet the new opportunities in
green jobs of the future. The knowledge, network and communication developed in
this university-community engagement in Florida and Johor would help bridge the
gap among STEM, community and government to foster STEM-based communityoriented policy on all national and regional matters, particularly those pertaining to
climate change.
7.2 STEM Community Partnership
The authors have been actively engaged in several research projects centred on development of STEM tools and innovations (e.g. software) to address real-world problems. The mathematical software named TUNA (Tsunami-tracking Utilities aNd
Application), developed by the authors, was successfully commercialised, assisting
clients such as Universiti Teknologi Petronas in assessing tsunami waves impact on
H. L. Koh and S. Y. Teh
7 Contribution of STEM
7.1 STEM in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
The 2015 Paris climate change agreement and other sustainability commitments
towards low carbon economies, have created new opportunities in the crossdisciplinary field of “green jobs”. The simplest definition of a green job is one that
reduces the negative impact made on the environment, relative to the status quo. However, a major problem in filling these new green vacancies is the lack of job-specific
skills in STEM and related careers (Bird and Lawton 2009). STEM has immense
application in sustainability-related research and applications. For example, STEM
was instrumental in developing cutting-edge simulation model MANTRA-O18 for
detecting early warning signals regarding regime shift induced by climate change
from glycophytic to halophytic vegetation in coastal wetlands including the Florida
Everglades (Teh et al. 2019). Such regime shifts can have dire consequences on
coastal vegetation and ENR. Early detection of vegetation regime shifts can provide valuable lead time to mitigate or adapt to the impact of climate change. This
early detection involves university-community engagement and interaction at the
local and regional levels, by way of data collection, analysis, synthesis and outreach. This problem-based university-community research collaboration will lead
to solution-oriented actions to protect local coastal resources against the impact of
climate change. Encouraged by the success in the Florida Everglades, similar university community engagement is currently ongoing at a research site in P. Kukup,
Johor, Malaysia, funded by the L’Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship awarded to the second author. Undoubtedly, mathematics is an integral and essential component for
advancing STEM and related research, which is crucial to environmental protection,
economic growth and social justice. This expanding contribution of mathematics
towards STEM, medical sciences, security in water and food could be a beacon to
attract more students in mathematics and STEM to meet the new opportunities in
green jobs of the future. The knowledge, network and communication developed in
this university-community engagement in Florida and Johor would help bridge the
gap among STEM, community and government to foster STEM-based communityoriented policy on all national and regional matters, particularly those pertaining to
climate change.
7.2 STEM Community Partnership
The authors have been actively engaged in several research projects centred on development of STEM tools and innovations (e.g. software) to address real-world problems. The mathematical software named TUNA (Tsunami-tracking Utilities aNd
Application), developed by the authors, was successfully commercialised, assisting
clients such as Universiti Teknologi Petronas in assessing tsunami waves impact on