Connected Earth: Bristol
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Abstract
Connected Earth aims to empower 11-to-17-year-olds from deprived socio-economic backgrounds to explore and voice their concerns about the future of their environment, and to connect these young people with scientists, activists and practitioners with similar lived experience who are successfully addressing the environmental challenges that they face.
Today’s young people (YP) stand to inherit a world with increasing global temperatures, burgeoning demand on Earth’s resources and more intense environmental hazards. These emergent crises stand to disproportionately effect the most deprived communities. Many YP are in challenging circumstances which prevents them from engaging with climate science and wider environmental work. In addition, the ways they can contribute to positive change whilst also making a living from environmental work can appear limited, as there are so few visible role models. These barriers and perceptions compound to make the environmental sector less appealing to YP from underserved backgrounds relative to other career paths.
Connected Earth will address these barriers through six workshops in which groups of ~20 YP co-produce podcasts with local environmental leaders across three themes: climate change and biodiversity loss, Earth’s stretched resources and intensifying environmental hazards. The themes match key components of the National Curriculum for KS3-4 and cover key skills gaps in the UK’s environmental sector. The workshops will support YP to build climate literacy and the skills needed to address environmental challenges, gain confidence voicing their opinions and experiences of environmental change and develop interventions needed for environmental solutions that also meet their community’s needs. The YP will record audio of conversations based on their findings from the workshop alongside two local environmental leaders (“Ambassadors”) who share the same lived experience and who currently work in the environmental sector across science, nature-based solutions and activism. The Ambassadors will be identified through the networks of Bristol Climate and Nature Partnership and our existing partner organisations. Ambassadors will highlight their diverse pathways into environmental careers, ahead of the YP choosing GCSE and A-level options that suit their aspirations. From the audio we will create podcasts to be shared with the workshop groups, their schools, and be distributed more widely through our existing network of partners, teachers and social media. We will also create lesson plans and activity sheets to be shared via the Teach Earth network, so the workshops can be used by other schools in their teaching.
Through this flipped approach to engagement, Connected Earth aims to foster hope among YP about their future, establish visible role models and highlight diverse pathways into the environmental sector. We will deliver the workshops in partnership with Bristol WORKS – a non-profit that supports YP at schools in Bristol that have multiple indicators of deprivation into post-16 pathways. Ultimately, Connected Earth aims to establish a sense of ownership of solutions to environmental challenges amongst disenfranchised YP, to influence early decision-making against the sciences at GCSE and A-level, and thereby impact their ability to choose environmental career paths in the future. We envisage that the place-based approach of Connected Earth can be scaled-up to a national program and will conduct rigorous self-assessment of our pilot and generate a set of recommendations for such a program.
Today’s young people (YP) stand to inherit a world with increasing global temperatures, burgeoning demand on Earth’s resources and more intense environmental hazards. These emergent crises stand to disproportionately effect the most deprived communities. Many YP are in challenging circumstances which prevents them from engaging with climate science and wider environmental work. In addition, the ways they can contribute to positive change whilst also making a living from environmental work can appear limited, as there are so few visible role models. These barriers and perceptions compound to make the environmental sector less appealing to YP from underserved backgrounds relative to other career paths.
Connected Earth will address these barriers through six workshops in which groups of ~20 YP co-produce podcasts with local environmental leaders across three themes: climate change and biodiversity loss, Earth’s stretched resources and intensifying environmental hazards. The themes match key components of the National Curriculum for KS3-4 and cover key skills gaps in the UK’s environmental sector. The workshops will support YP to build climate literacy and the skills needed to address environmental challenges, gain confidence voicing their opinions and experiences of environmental change and develop interventions needed for environmental solutions that also meet their community’s needs. The YP will record audio of conversations based on their findings from the workshop alongside two local environmental leaders (“Ambassadors”) who share the same lived experience and who currently work in the environmental sector across science, nature-based solutions and activism. The Ambassadors will be identified through the networks of Bristol Climate and Nature Partnership and our existing partner organisations. Ambassadors will highlight their diverse pathways into environmental careers, ahead of the YP choosing GCSE and A-level options that suit their aspirations. From the audio we will create podcasts to be shared with the workshop groups, their schools, and be distributed more widely through our existing network of partners, teachers and social media. We will also create lesson plans and activity sheets to be shared via the Teach Earth network, so the workshops can be used by other schools in their teaching.
Through this flipped approach to engagement, Connected Earth aims to foster hope among YP about their future, establish visible role models and highlight diverse pathways into the environmental sector. We will deliver the workshops in partnership with Bristol WORKS – a non-profit that supports YP at schools in Bristol that have multiple indicators of deprivation into post-16 pathways. Ultimately, Connected Earth aims to establish a sense of ownership of solutions to environmental challenges amongst disenfranchised YP, to influence early decision-making against the sciences at GCSE and A-level, and thereby impact their ability to choose environmental career paths in the future. We envisage that the place-based approach of Connected Earth can be scaled-up to a national program and will conduct rigorous self-assessment of our pilot and generate a set of recommendations for such a program.