Parent Power: School climate action from the outside in
What happens when a group of parents concerned about their children and climate change organise a Saturday morning get-together? Creativity, inspiration and whole lot of empowerment, that’s what.
Devon Parents for Climate and Biodiversity Action in Schools is a newly formed group of parents, many of whom are UN accredited climate change teachers, who were concerned about the seeming lack of action in local schools in response to the climate emergency.
A copy of the letter sent out to local Devon schools.
After visiting local Devon schools and surveying student groups to gauge interest, the parent group started their work by focusing on building local networks of support. An invitation was sent out to students across a range of local Primary and Secondary schools, inviting them to come for a morning to share ideas and inspiration about climate action in schools.
On Saturday 1st February, 60+ students (aged 10 to 17) from across 19 schools came together for a morning of talks, workshops and co-creating.
The day started with an introduction from Dr Ben King, one of the first of now 329,000 UN Climate Change Teachers who started by encouraging students to get active in their schools and shared some of his own experiences as a climate change teacher.
ThoughtBox were invited into the event to run a whole-group workshop using a systems-thinking activity. (Systems thinking is a way of understanding relationships and how everything around us interconnects and is interdependent.) The workshop invited the students to learn a little about eco-systems by becoming unique parts of a system (e.g. Solar System, Respiratory System etc.) and then rearranging and removing parts from each system to understand and explore the different relationships and connections.
ThoughtBox Director Rachel then linked these ideas to the concept of children causing a ‘ripple effect’ back in schools through simple positive actions – starting with talking - the simple act of having conversations about climate change.
The focus for this workshop - and indeed the morning -was on empowerment and emotional wellbeing, encouraging everyone: teachers, parents, students, to remember to look after themselves first and foremost (the old oxygen mask analogy) by having someone to talk to and share their thoughts and feelings about climate change.
Dr Jude Allen, one of the main organisers and UN Climate Change teacher, continued the morning by exploring the notion that it is adults that bear the main responsibility on Climate Change action and does not fall on the shoulders of children. She then spent time helping young people to start exploring where they can be activators and feel empowered back in their school communities.
Students were invited to imagine what they would like happening in their schools by 2030 and then back-cast to work out the steps needed to be taken to get to that place.
