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A climate conference for schools is coming to South Yorkshire

The three-day event organised by Schools’ Climate Education South Yorkshire will explore climate change issues in schools in July.

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Ma Ti (Unsplash)

Set up in 2019, Schools’ Climate Education South Yorkshire (SCESY) is a local climate group that focuses on organising schools conferences in South Yorkshire around climate change issues.

An event was originally planned for 2020, but due to the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, it could not go ahead.

A three-day virtual schools conference, organised by SCESY, will take place in July. Speaking to Now Then, Richard Souter, a member of SCESY, explains why the conference is needed in South Yorkshire.

"There’s a bit of disconnect with other climate action campaigns and organisations across the country, so we want to bridge this gap by bringing it all together in schools... Climate education is a major part of wider climate action, so we want to ensure that younger generations are aware and engaged with the issues.”

SCESY want this conference to be a foundation for climate issues and action to be taught across the board on the school curriculum, not reserved for specific optional subjects.

“A student could go through their whole education without coming into contact with climate education - and that’s exactly what we don’t want,” Souter says.

The conference aims to look at a range of topics and issues within climate change, including sustainable energy, carbon reduction, air quality and water conservation. SCESY wants the conference to be educational, but also fun and engaging.

“Climate change is of course a serious subject, but we want to create some fun out of it, as we know children and young people learn and engage in different ways.”

Students and teachers can expect a variety of events at the conference, including talks from experts in the field, interactive workshops and video presentations.

The conference will be open to primary and secondary schools, so that a greater number of students are engaging with the topics, whilst also offering professional development for teachers.

As well as being an educational event, SCESY also wants the conference to translate into people taking action. If that’s a school working out their carbon emissions and looking at how they can cut these emissions or a student encouraging recycling at home, any and all action is valid.

The group will also provide recordings of events so schools can always come back and reference topics or skills long after the conference is over.

“Schools and students can very much influence their home and wider community - and we want people to take the knowledge and skills they learn during the event out into the world.”

If you're a South Yorkshire school who's interested in taking part in the SCESY conference in July, you can sign up here.

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