Ghazala Ahmed-Mear and Steve Platt ran HVCA’s Schools Climate Challenge with a mix of primary and secondary pupils from 24 Sheffield Schools at Schools Climate Education South Yorkshire conference on 2 March. The overall aim of the conference purpose was to enable pupils to meet like-minded others from across the region and to create a network so schools can learn from each other. The aim of HVCA’s Challenge is to engage, educate and empower children to take a lead with their families on climate action. Being given 45 mins for each, the 3 workshops felt ‘fast and furious’ relative to the SCC sessions given in Hope Valley schools.
Participating South Yorks Schools
All the children found Ghazala’s live talk about Antarctic with a slideshow inspiring and engaging, as evidenced by the very focused and thoughtful follow-on questions, particularly from the younger students. There was a good spread of ages from 10-15 years in each of the three workshops we ran, and the children were from schools with mixed ethnic background and demographics. All were engaged and cooperated well.
The change to the card game was smooth and generated much discussion and sharing of ideas. The students immediately understood the task and the cards provoked animated discussion, facilitated by the teachers. The children were able to ask questions and choose their pledges swiftly and it was easy to take a tally at the end of each workshop to identify the pledges made. It was heartening to find that, despite climate change being in curriculum and the audience already engaged in many climate actions, the children were able to find new pledges, for example writing to their MP or lobbying the local council.
Feedback from the audience at the end of each session made it clear that the children and teachers had enjoyed the session and found it informative and inspiring. There were many enquiries regarding subsequent provision of the session to the schools and contacts were made and we directed enquiries to the HVCA website Teachers Pack.
Because we took a tally, we can compare the pledges made by children in Hope Valley and Sheffield schools. We didn’t use the last two suits that covered communications and finance in the first round of sessions in Hope Valley, so they haven’t included in the comparison.
The main thing we learnt was that the session worked just as well with younger and older children, children in urban and rural areas and with children of different ethnicities and backgrounds. This is most encouraging since it suggests that the session has broad appeal. We also found that the patterns of choices were similar, but with some crucial differences that reflect the differences between rural and urban areas. The two graphs show that, for example pledging to “use of public transport” is more popular in Sheffield, whilst “make a garden pond” and “make garden bee friendly”, was less popular than in Hope Valley because many children lived in homes without a garden.
In conclusion, students of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicity engaged enthusiastically and the workshops were well received.
