by Sebastian Schaffer
On April 24, teachers from EUROCAMPUS embarked on a joint workshop developed by the Climate Fresk NGO and hosted by LFM. The Climate Fresk NGO has been working to bring people and organizations on board with the climate transition since the end of 2018, mainly by enabling the rapid growth of climate education and shared understanding of the challenge that climate change represents. Climate Fresk’s mission started in France and is now active in over 40 countries around the world. The organization has a decentralized and participatory governance structure that was inspired by the Swedish Pirate Party, whose principles include democracy, transparency and the right to make mistakes.
Following a brief introduction on the background, principles and objectives of the Climate Fresk workshop, three groups of teachers engaged in creating an actual Climate Fresk (i.e. a fresco = display) from five sets of printed cards based on the latest IPCC report. The cards featured topics such as human activities, scientific basics of climate change, effects on nature, feedback loops, as well as consequences for biodiversity and future human existence. Owing to the complexity of the subject, the activity was accompanied by lively discussion and frequent shifting of cards until each group agreed on a final chain of cause and effect of climate change-related aspects. During the debriefing session, participants then got creative again, by collecting and discussing ideas for improving our sustainability efforts within the EUROCAMPUS community.
In a next step, interested teachers will now participate in an online training, to become Climate Fresk facilitators, with the aim to bring this activity to our classrooms. Thus, latest in the new school year 2024/25, students of both GESM and LFM can look forward to experiencing the Climate Fresk workshop themselves as a fun-filled activity that will hopefully inspire us all to better understand the scientific principles of weather and climate patterns, to reflect on our own behavior (shopping, travel, etc.) and, ultimately, to take action in a sustainable way to improve the learning environment on EUROCAMPUS and possibly beyond.
