Experiences of young people’s climate change forum

By Megan Olney

The Beacon for Wales Climate Change Project, headed up by Cardiff University, has been taking its hands-on educational workshop to the young people of Wales, to gain a better insight into their understanding of and attitude towards climate change. The workshop focuses on the issue of adaptation, and encourages young people to think about how both environmental policy and their own individual lifestyle can affect the environment.

The design of the workshop that this project is taking out to schools is trying to move away from an academic approach, and towards a more hands-on, practical approach, which creates knowledge that can be applied to daily life. The workshop does still feature expert speakers, but stays grounded in keeping the interest of its audience by using a fictitious case study, a young boy called Scott who lives in ‘Abernewydd’, and games that investigate the possible futures of coastal climate change where Scott lives. These games encourage young people to think about how they would cope with environmental change or disaster, by adapting their houses, energy supplies or transport routes. These games are further developed with the use of real life video clips and maps of local areas that pinpoint where may be most at risk of flooding from coastal corrosion and rising water levels.

This project is working to make learning about climate change an interesting and perhaps more importantly a relevant, experience to young people in Wales. By using ‘Scott’ as the case study and illustrating their work using local areas of Welsh coastline young people can perhaps better envisage how climate change could affect the real world they inhabit, and not just the Arctic Circle. They can also begin to think about ways to tackle the problems which may occur in their futures by being encouraged to think creatively about problem solving and reusable energies.