April 19, 2024, by sustainablenottingham

Climate Fresk Kicks Off at UoN

At the end of March, the university held its first ever large-scale Climate Fresk workshop. Over 30 staff and students were educated on the science of climate change and empowered to take effective action to tackle it. They were led by a team of 12 facilitators made up of fellow staff and students who were specifically trained to deliver the event.

What is Climate Fresk?

Climate Fresk is an interactive workshop that explores the science behind the climate emergency in a fun and engaging way. Climate Fresk is neutral and objective only dealing with facts that come from the most respected scientific sources.

Over several weeks, 12 volunteer staff and students have undergone training to become Climate Fresk facilitators. This means that peer to peer learning takes place and enhances the experience over the course of the three hour workshop.

Two student facilitators share their thoughts

“The Climate Fresk offered a unique space for individuals to come together and begin to think about climate change holistically. All of the facts about the causes and consequences of climate change are broken up into bitesize pieces using a deck of 42 cards. This allowed the group to engage with the information and think through each card before laying them out in an order of causes to consequences on the paper. These cards became a big web of climate change processes that all the members of the group could talk through. In this sense, the Climate Fresk is really admirable! It allows people to thoroughly learn a lot of information far quicker than could be done in a classroom.

After all the cards are laid out, the group could draw arrows connecting cards or other images, words or doodles that came to mind. This created a really impressive Fresk. Some of the drawings were related to climate change events that members of the group felt a connection to, for example, images of Nottingham flooding. This creative element really helped to engage those taking part with the facts and the figures and get them thinking about how they play out in the real world, be that with flooding, fires, or an increased number of respiratory health problems. I’m sure it will also make all the information far more memorable to participants and thus more likely to inspire them to take initiative and have conversations with their friends and families about climate change.”

– Francesca, UoN Geography student

“I think what makes Climate Fresk really impactful is not only that we discuss what is happening to our planet and the implications of warming, but we are also provided with a space to discuss changes that we can make to help reduce our own emissions.

Part of the Fresk is sharing ideas that individuals can do to help the climate crisis. Some ideas shared by our group were smaller changes such as recycling using the correct bins, to bigger ones such as advocating for adding climate change education into the school curriculum. At the end of the Fresk each member of the group pledged to create one change each.

It was really great to hear ideas from others and have empowering conversations about how we can make a difference. I think that facilitating a place for people to come up with their own initiatives that work for them is far more likely to encourage people to commit to these initiatives. I think the engaging element of Climate Fresk would really make a difference in contrast to just being given a list of changes or actions that you are told to do.”

– Hannah, UoN Geography student

Further workshops will be run in future. If you are would like to take part or find out more, contact the university Sustainability Team.

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