Young Climathon – School classes solve climate challenges

On "Black Friday", four school classes from St. Gallen and Altstätten rose to the challenge to solve demanding climate challenges as part of a "Young Climathon". On this day, in small groups, the pupils solved local climate tasks in the areas of mobility, nutrition, consumption and data using visual tools and methods. The aim was to discover possible contributions to effective climate protection and to develop innovative solutions for their own everyday lives, school and their personal environment.

On 29 November, around 110 young people were out in full force developing possible solutions to local climate protection challenges in the areas of consumption, nutrition, mobility and data as part of the St. Gallen "Young Climathon" in the inspiring Startfeld innovation centre.

Pupils were supported in their efforts and were challenged to tackle complex climate protection issues and to develop innovative ideas. The format co-developed especially by the myclimate education team encouraged and enabled the young people to get actively involved in the discussion with local players in the search for climate protection solutions. Interactive methods and visual tools trained the participants in systematic, forward-looking and critically-constructive thinking. The approach promotes action-oriented learning, focuses on real and current problems and generates promising solutions through creative thinking.

With the help of myclimate, the participants are first given an introduction to the methods and tools provided to support them in their search for and development of possible solutions. The ideas for solutions were presented in a pitch. A jury with representatives from the programme partners energy city St. Gallen, Smartfeld, climate innovation initiative Climate-KIC and Citizens Science Center Zürich, selected the best suggested ideas for solutions. The pupils were enthusiastic about the concept.

 

Platform solutions and gamification approaches

The ideas of the winning team included a platform for car sharing, promoting clothes swaps, flea markets, pop-up stores, the reuse of digital devices in schools and collection points for sustainable products and those with minimal packaging. Further ideas were a climate card, which allowed the user to collect points for practical climate protection in everyday life and parent-child cooking courses for sustainable cooking. Conclusion by a teacher: "The pupils were very dedicated in their work, evidently enjoyed themselves and, in addition to the subject of climate, also learned with new problem analysis and solution finding methods."

More information on the workshops for innovative climate protection tools and on setting up and designing a Climathon is available from Simone Pulfer (simone.pulfer@myclimate.org) and Florian Strasser (florian.strasser@myclimate.org).

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