KEVICC Courier Spring

Page 20 Devon Parents Climate and Biodiversity Action On Saturday 1st Feb me and 4 other students from KEVICC, went to a multi-school Climate Change awareness and action meeting run by the DPCBA (Devon Parents for Climate and Biodiversity Action in Schools). The main aim was to raise awareness about Climate Change, and to declare a Climate Emergency whilst also coming up with ideas for what to do to reduce our school’s carbon/climate/environmental footprint. It was great fun! I think most, if not all, the people came out empowered to make a change. The first thing we did in the day was an introduction to system thinking run by Rachel Musson from Thought Box. The systems thinking bit showed us how taking one part of a system out affects the rest and how one system can affect others because it’s all interconnected. Later we went onto coming up with ideas for solving the Climate Crisis at a school level and finished by talking about how to start the ball rolling in terms of declaring a Climate Emergency. Key to this was how to support the movement in school and what success might look like. Einstein once said ‘A clever person solves a problem, a wise person avoids it.’ We now have to be the clever person because we didn’t have the wise people in the past that had the power to avoid the problem in the first place. Overall it was a good day because it taught everybody a thing or two and got everyone involved in coming up with ideas to solve the problem. By Manu Rees-Durham Photos by Chris Smith from New Futures Academy My five proposed steps for KEVICC to take to tackle the climate emergency: 1. Declare a climate emergency 2. Develop a 2030 zero carbon plan by: a. Collect and analyse data on the schools carbon dioxide emissions b. Engage students, parents, teachers, staff and governors with the data and collect their thoughts/ ideas on the possible actions to mitigate the emergency c. Develop a cohesive action plan 3. Work out what investment is required by the school, how to access thismoney and the other resources required 4. Act on the plan 5. Measure success and update our response to make sure we’re on track By Manu Rees-Durham Above: Rachel Musson from Thoughtbox Education running an inspirational workshop on systems and how all the components of each system are connected. Above: Students from local schools imagining postive futures for 2030 and backcasting the actions that we need to make such futures achievable!