Taking Action Together

Alison Anderson is a Professor of Sociology in the School of Society and Culture at the University of Plymouth. She has over 30 years’ experience working in the field of public engagement and environmental communication. She has recently undertaken a piece of research with the British Science Association ‘Climate change in secondary schools: young people's views of climate change and sustainability education’. This included a national survey of 1,000 14-to-18-year-olds and two follow up workshops to explore the responses in greater depth.

In addition, she commissioned a national survey of over 8,000 teachers concerning their views about embedding climate change and sustainability across the curriculum. Her research on empowering youth voices to mobilise behaviour change was exhibited at COP26 and her work has featured in BBC Radio, Der Standard; Financial Times; Toronto Star; and The Times Education Supplement.

She is a founding member of the International Environmental Communication Association and former Editor-in-Chief of the Routledge journal Environmental Communication.

Nicky Bailey has worked as the Community Project Officer with South Devon National Landscape for 14 years and is passionate about helping people to connect with the landscape and inspiring them to value and care for it.

Her collaborative approach engages many different groups, organisations, and people in telling their stories, and creating new ones, and schools can be good gateway into that community.

Let’s Go Zero is the national campaign uniting teachers, pupils, parents and their schools as they all work together to be zero carbon by 2030.

We’re also working with national government to ensure the right support is in place to help all schools reach this goal through seven policy actions.

From Glasgow to Belfast, Liverpool to Cardiff, school leaders are standing alongside students and taking action to tackle the climate crisis. Every school that signs up is pledging to work towards a more sustainable future while calling for much-needed government support to help all schools reach their zero carbon goals.

By raising our voices together, we are showing the overwhelming support for zero carbon schools up and down the UK. Together we’re harnessing the power of schools and young people to drive change and spark climate action in communities across the country, reducing emissions, increasing biodiversity and safeguarding our planet for future generations.

Alex Mack Education Team Leader has worked for Resource Futures on the Education Team for 16 years. The team are funded by Devon County Council to deliver the Recycle Devon in schools project Workshops - Zone(recycledevon.org) delivering workshops, audits and assemblies in Devon schools all about waste, recycling, materials, resources and composting.

Following extensive desk-based research, interviews and surveys conducted with Devon teachers by the Resource Futures Behaviour Change team, she will be presenting on a review of the barriers teachers face to including climate change in their teaching.

Alex will present the findings of this research, has looked at a range of barriers, such as time, knowledge training, resources and policy. She will also share initial thoughts on what is needed to overcome these and enable teachers to include this important subject much more widely.

How do we build resilient communities of changemakers? How can we lead with hope in our projects and activities? How can we communicate about climate change effectively? Hear from speakers and join in the discussion!

Spotlight Speakers:

Jess Carter & Bethia Stevenson-Paul – Planet and People

'Hope' - an essential ingredient for creating more resilient communities and inspiring change.

Planet & People is a Community Interest Company which aims to empower young people to create a better future for planet and people. Co-founded by teaching and ecologist team, Jess & Bethia, together with others, deliver Planet Action Workshops in schools across Devon and beyond. These are positive, inspiring and age-appropriate sessions presented in an engaging and fun way to young people of school age. Our workshops have themes such as 'Hope', 'Speak Up' and 'There's No Place Like Home' and offer a broad perspective on the climate and nature challenge whilst offering plenty of opportunity for interaction, teamwork, creativity and leadership. Our curriculum-linked workshops are typically half-day sessions, take the pressure off teachers and are at no cost to the school. We work hard to fundraise and donations enable our work to continue.

Patricia Hannam – Philosophy for Children

Patricia is a teacher, adviser and a teacher educator in P4C for almost 25years. 

P4C(Philosophy for Children, Colleges and Communities) gives a place where children and young people can think about what kind of people they want to become and what kind of a world they want to live in. SAPERE accredits training in the UK https://www.sapere.org.uk/about-us/ .

P4C is an approach to teaching that explores big ideas that arise in all areas of education and life experience. P4C uses philosophical dialogue and enquiry to help people to think, to speak, to listen, to learn and to live together more effectively.

There has never been a greater need for the kind of open ended exploration that P4Coffers. Children and young people are growing up at a time of significant uncertainty. The Climate Crisis, economic inequality, global health crises, racism and discrimination, armed conflict, and political polarisation loom large, even for very young children.

P4Coffers a way for children and young people to raise and explore their own questions in a supportive, educational space. 

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Roger Higman - Network of Wellbeing

Building Wellbeing Together for People and the Planet. Our vision is people and the planet thriving together. Our mission is to connect people, support projects and inspire action for the wellbeing of people and the planet. We do this through sharing events and building a network of people who are passionate about wellbeing. In his spotlight talk, Roger will discuss how we can sustain our activism over the long term and will share news of an upcoming wellbeing for changemakers programme.

Youth Voices in Climate Education - a video presentation with Alison Anderson, Anna Turns and Climate Adam

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Get inspired by successful projects and learn from effective partnerships to build your own collaborative action plan. Hear from speakers and join in the discussion!

Spotlight Speakers:

Cliff Harris -  Schools Engagement Lead, Yealm Estuary to Moor Project (YEM)

Cliff is a Steering Group member for the YEM Project. He has a remit for the  Yealm "Catchment Schools" and Community Engagement. The YEM Project works across six parishes and engages seven catchment primary schools, together with Ivybridge Community College (ICC) .

Each of the catchment schools has a mini tree seed nursery, together with guidance books provided by YEM, to enable the children to grow trees from seed to produce  tree saplings. The saplings can be planted in the school grounds, or brought on in one of the four Community Tree Seed Nurseries in the YEM Project. YEM hold an annual "Tree Seed Sunday" a common date, when, in each of the six parishes, children and the community step out together to forage for tree seeds. The schools are also provided with learning support material for Forest School and Nature activities. In partnership with Devon Wild Life Trust, Parklife and the National Trust the children have had  the opportunity to be involved in real tree planting schemes, The schools have received help to plant orchards, build birdhouses, hedgehog nests, bat homes, bug hotels and plant wild life meadows .

Each year the Catchment Schools take part "The YEM Catchment Schools Art Challenge" , when following internal art competitions the schools offer their three very best pictures to be exhibited and judged at the Yealmpton Show. Last years pictures where judged by a Mermaid!

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John Shellard - Ivybridge Community College

John  is the Lead Teacher of a new AQA A level course ay Ivybridge Community College. The College has a strong commitment to enabling its students to understand the issues of sustainability and climate change.  Johns course involves two modules on  research methodology. YEM is working with Parklife, Plymouth University and the land owner of a section of the river Yealm, Rubies Wood, that has been closed to human access for nearly forty years. The students are engaged in  setting up real  research and data collecting field work  projects in Rubies Wood. The data will be used to undertake comparative studies along the course of the river  Yealm. The students are also engaged in river water sampling, working with the Dartmoor National Park and Parklife to mitigate the effects of storm water runoff  from the Moor down stream.

Hayden Gabriel – Sustainable South Brent

Hayden is the Youth Liaison lead for Sustainable South Brent. SSB encompasses more than a dozen different projects, all working towards creating a resilient, low-carbon community where all life thrives.  Hayden will be talking about how collaborating with existing groups for young people, and liaising with primary and secondary schools, has proved to be an important and rewarding part of SSB’s endeavours.  

Mel Harvey & Annkatrin Hendry - Growing Devon Schools Project

Growing Devon Schools (GDS) exists to support teachers, parents, and community volunteers in the development and delivery of outdoor experiential learning. We aim to help builds skills, environmental awareness, a lifelong healthy relationship with food and an understanding of its production and preparation. We do this by delivering teacher training and networking events in schools and other venues, building the confidence of school staff and volunteers to work with the food cycle and outdoor learning, both in class and extra-curricular time. This short talk will introduce some of the work of GDSP over the last 10 years, and identify possibilities for what we might do next.

Bobby Hughes & Alex Mack - Devon Waste Education Team 

Bobby Hughes is a Senior Waste Management Officer for Devon County Council (DCC); overseeing both the Recycle Devon Waste Education Programme and Community Action Groups (CAG) Devon project.  Bobby is passionate about environmental and community action, both via her work with DCC and in her spare time volunteering with her local Repair Café, Wildlife group and by supporting her children’s schools with environmental projects.  

In their spotlight session, Bobby & Alex will provide an overview of Devon’s Waste Education work including the War on Waste (WoW) project, waste audits, workshops, school community events and visits to waste management facilities. They will also provide a quick look at resources available to download from the Recycle Devon School Zone website and their top tips on how to engage schools and youth groups.

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Hear from two highly experienced organisations about what really works to engage your community in action for climate and nature and how to collaborate effectively.

Spotlight Speakers:

Nicky Bailey - South Devon National Landscapes

Creative approaches to community engagement

Using arts can be a great way to engage people who might not normally take part in environmental projects.

This workshop will explore how we are using creative crafts and the arts to open doors, connect with new people and tell the story of Life on the Edge – a £4.2 million project which will engage farmers, landowners, and communities to restore coastal grasslands for rare and endangered invertebrates.

This session will introduce the Life on the Edge project and the approach we are using, as well as sharing some ideas and activities that you can use in your setting.

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Katie Wilkinson, Emma Smith & Fiona Blake - Devon Wildlife Trust Wilder Communities & Wilder Learning Teams

Join Devon Wildlife Trust for a ‘collaboration café’ session. The Wilder Communities and Wilder Learning team will be posing some questions to think about in relation to how communities and schools can best work together to enable local action for nature. This will be fuelled by cake and will be very much about chatting to one another informally and discussing this topic together.

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