Environment, Education and Creativity

PUPILS AT BLYTH COMMUNITY COLLEGE EXPLORE THE ISSUES OF CLIMATE CHANGE… 30 young people have been given the opportunity to make up their own minds about one of the world’s most important issues affecting the global community in the 21st Century – especially as terms like “Carbon Footprint” and “Global Warming” dominate political agendas and media headlines across the planet (turn to page 2 to learn more about the workshop).
Blyth Community College in Northumberland played host to a workshop as part of a creative education programme entitled CLIMATE CHANGE EXPLORER which has been pioneered and championed by Newcastle-based HELIX ARTS.

The Climate Change Explorer programme has been developed in association with ECN (Environmental Change Network) and over the past 2 years has been a pilot project with Cumbria Arts in Education (at Dowdales School). It is currently being rolled out across Northumberland in specially selected schools and colleges with the support of Creative Partnerships Northumberland.
Climate Change Explorer aims to educate the public, and in particular young people, about issues of climate change at a local and national level. The programme explores creative approaches to investigating the evidence, interrogating the debate and taking individual and collective ownership of the issues.

The key element of Climate Change Explorer is a groundbreaking interactive online education resource with open public access plus a private area for subscribing schools, in this case BLYTH COMMUNITY COLLEGE, to develop and upload new work. The aim of the website facility is to give people [young learners and teachers] the chance to absorb and contribute information about climate change – the programme is being piloted in schools across the North-East and North-West of England by ADAM HILL of North Shields-based GLOBAL VOICE (UK) and New Media Artist ADAM CLARKE.

The Creative Workshop: The 30 Year 9 students (aged 14) at Blyth Community College experimented with animation and filmmaking techniques as they aimed to communicate their personal views on the topical environmental concerns. The workshop expertly fuses the learning dynamics of science, geography, citizenship and art.

Blyth is an ideal location for a Climate Change Explorer workshop as the North East coastal town would be at risk if sea levels were to rise as part of the effects of Global Warming. The town was also one of the first places in the country to introduce offshore wind farms as a form of environmentally friendly energy – a subject that provided a creative nucleus for the workshop.
“Climate Change Explorer is a perfect vehicle to allow our students to express their feelings on climate change in a creative and innovative way,” said Mrs Wendy Cooper, Teacher of Science at Blyth Community College.

Wendy continues by talking about how important it is for the young people to have the opportunity to explore and understand how the issues of climate change will impact upon their own lives. She believes the programme will give them a balanced view about the subject and allow them to make up their own minds.

The wonderful aspect about Climate Change Explorer is the way it benefits both the student and the teacher. Wendy underlines the impact the programme has had on her own teaching methods, as Climate Change Explorer is the perfect tool for cross curricular teaching.

Climate Change Explorer has been supported by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs); Arts Council England; Creative Partnerships Cumbria and Northumberland; Ernest Cook Trust and Cumberland Building Society.

Climate Change Explorer aims to encourage new partnerships between key individuals working in environmental arts, education and science. The project will implement this whilst exploring new ways of thinking about climate change.

Wendy concludes: “Climate Change Explorer has not only made me think about how I teach the subject of climate change but it has also allowed me to use the same method of delivery to teach other topics in an exciting way.”

“The website element of the programme has a dual teaching and educational function, as it allows me to network with other teaching professionals and enables the students to post their findings online and learn from other peoples’ experiences.”

Helix Arts:

"Putting a creative spin on the serious subject of Climate Change is a great way for young people to express their worries and fears about the environmental situation currently affecting our planet," said Teri Sayers, Project Manager for Helix Arts.

Helix Arts specialise in the development of projects and initiatives that explore the role and potential of the arts in a social context. Teri adds: "The work of Helix Arts isn't about preaching environmental issues to the young people, it's more about raising awareness and developing skills that will enable the individuals to acquire their own judgements and opinions on the world around us."

New Media Artist, Adam Clarke:
“The workshops ideally provide the young people with the creative freedom and confidence to explore a variety of climate change issues, often using science as a starting point to approach and discuss all sides of the climate change debate,” said New Media Artist, Adam Clarke.

The Windermere-based creative professional believes it’s vitally important that young people are given the chance to create their own opinions on climate change and provided with the skills to articulately communicate their

key messages on how they want their future to materialise. Adam (37) thinks the partnership elements between science and art are the fundamental reasons why Climate Change Explorer has captured the imagination of the climate change scene; it creates a prime voice for the young people to tackle the scientific arguments using the vehicle of creativity.

Adam concludes: “Climate Change Explorer allows young people to articulate themselves about new and existing issues that affect them and the wider world. This programme will enable them to share the information amongst their friends and develop the young people into active communicators through the function of creativity.”

Further Climate Change Explorer details:

The CLIMATE CHANGE EXPLORER project has provided a great opportunity for groups of young people to find out about climate change and its effects. Through creative, artist-led activities they have explored some of the impacts that climate change is having in their own country, as determined by long-term environmental monitoring. This has been carried out over 15 years by the UK's Environmental Change Network (ECN), a multi-agency programme represented in the project by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

The website also showcases some of the other creative work that has been produced under the banner of Climate Change Explorer by artists and young people with the intention to inspire others to find out about climate change and its significance. The featured artists include: Lorraine Berry, Adam Clarke and Pete Rogers. The Next Move: Climate Change Explorer is an interactive model that can be facilitated in schools and colleges anywhere in the country.

For further information about Climate Change Explorer please contact Helix Arts by calling (0191) 241 4931 or via emailing info@helixarts.com alternatively people can access information by visiting www.helixarts.com

The BIGGER PICTURE… after May 2008 and moving into the next academic year Climate Change Explorer will continue beyond its current phase by moving over to Cumbria and will be delivered in learning establishments by TDA.

The TDA (Training Development Agency) is funding a project to advance the practise of teachers alongside creative practitioners, using the cross curricular approaches developed as part of Climate Change Explorer, and focusing on how critical thinking skills can engage learners in environmental issues.

It's our choice, it's our world and it's our future.... Climate Change Explorer.

Additional Quote & Details:

Creative Partnerships Northumberland

Creative Partnerships is the Government's flagship creative learning programme, designed to develop the skills of young people across England, raising their aspirations and achievements, and equipping them for their futures.

We support thousands of innovative, long-term partnerships between schools and creative professionals, who inspire teachers and young people to challenge how they work and experiment with new ideas in all subject areas. This world-leading programme is transforming learning.

Creative Partnerships is managed by Arts Council England and funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) with additional support from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

Sarah Burn, Head of Programming, Creative Partnerships Northumberland, said: "As science and technology are changing the world at such a pace, education should aim to develop in young people ambitious, imaginative, enquiring minds, along with the confidence, thinking skills and tools needed to seek out and invent answers. Climate Change Explorer is a perfect example of this in action."
Media Contact: (for all interview and photography requests)

Garry Smith – Strictly Press

T: 0191 2892809 / M: 07899910823 / E: news@strictlypress.co.uk

Notes to Editor:
1). Helix Arts specialise in the development of projects and initiatives that explore the role and potential of the arts in a social context. www.helixarts.com
2). The Environmental Change Network (ECN) is the UK's long-term environmental monitoring programme. It is designed to collect, store, analyse and interpret long-term data based on a set of key physical, chemical and biological variables, which drive and respond to environmental change at a range of terrestrial and freshwater sites across the UK. ECN is a multi-agency initiative of14 sponsoring organisations co-ordinated by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. www.ecn.ac.uk and www.ceh.ac.uk

3). The aim of Cumbria Arts in Education is to increase opportunities for young people and the wider community in Cumbria to work with, and benefit from, the skills and expertise of professional artists. www.cumbriaarts.co.uk

4). Climate Change Explorer will showcase work from all of the schools involved in this pilot phase of the programme and in particular two schools that have been highly influential in the whole project - Dowdales School in Cumbria and Mortimer Community College in South Shields.

For further information about Dowdales School please visit www.dowdalesschool.co.uk/home.htm
For further information about Mortimer Community College please visit www.mortimercomprehensive.co.uk

Photography: There’s a set of colour high resolution (300 dpi) support images to accompany any potential Climate Change Explorer articles – photo credit TONY GRIFFITHS - they are available on request by contacting Garry Smith of Strictly Press– 0789 9910823 / news@strictlypress.co.uk