In May, North West Community Campus (NWCC) in Dumfries was selected to represent the South of Scotland at the 1.5 Max Summit in advance of COP26.
This was a huge opportunity for pupils and staff to be involved with COP26 activities.
The summit allowed school representatives be represented at a high profile event and have their climate change views listened to.
A spokesman said: “This has been an ambitious project and a fantastic opportunity for our young people to make a significant difference in initiating a conversation on climate change and embed climate change education into the school curriculum.”
Some learners participated in the 3-day summit at The Bridge in Dumfries, engaging with participants from other Scottish schools and schools in Nepal, Mozambique and Malawi.
The first task was to identify a problem statement of climate change that effects Dumfries and Galloway. This was flooding, which was also a problem identified by some of the partners.
The group then found out more about progress made by different countries towards climate change as discussed at the COP held in Paris Cop 2015.
The groups also heard from keynote speakers, including:
• Dr Maarten van Aalst, director of Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
• Carmen Munhequete, principal consultant at Resource Management based in Maputo, Mozambique
They gave a first-hand account of how climate change has an effect on communities.
Video stories showed how our behaviour is impacting others around the world and group members were shocked to see the impact of our behaviour on waste management and single use plastic.
The main task of the summit was for group members to come up with a product based on the problem of flooding, to help protect the local environment and combat climate change.
The group developed an action plan of changes that can be taken forward in NWCC to educate members of the community on climate change and encourage behaviour change in school.
Comments from participants included:
“I wanted to know more about climate change and I joined to help improve the school and the environment.”
“I joined to try to make a difference and have my voice heard.”
“I learned about how badly our actions can affect countries, especially poorer developing countries”
“I learned how much we can do to change the way we live”
“I learned about how bigger countries are having a big effect on climate change and the poorer countries are experiencing the consequences of that”
The schools involved are now (virtually) meeting regularly and are motivated more than ever in giving Learning for Sustainability a high profile in school.
