Our event at the amazing Brunel Museum Thames Tunnel on 10th July 2024 shared our work to date with a group drawn from industry, education, local government and community/advocacy organisations. It included a tour by Tim the tour guide, a climate skills mini-workshop based on the Thames Tunnel itself and its role as a piece of transformative infrastructure, a keynote talk by Kris de Meyer of UCL’s Climate Action Unit and this talk by Dee Halligan, Director at Forth and Project Director for the First Hand programme. We then enjoyed drinks at the extraordinary Midnight Apothecary roof garden, itself an example of adaptive re-use.

Talk notes content

<aside> 👋 I’m Dee Halligan and the occasion for this talk is the soft-launch of a new green skills programme for industry called First Hand:

I’m project director for the programme which we’ve created as part of the European funded project LEVERS: Learning Ventures for Climate Justice.
This continues my work at Forth on exploratory formats and models for engagement and learning with a view to connecting people to the ideas and skills needed in a changing world.
I have a particular interest and expertise in Place-based and Open Learning, meaning learning which is real world, hands-on and collaborative. </aside>

Part 1: Some thoughts on where we are in terms of climate skills (and how that led to First Hand)

🤷‍♀️ ‘We don’t do climate’: What are we talking about when we talk about learning for climate action?

🌎 Learning to do what? The search for a climate curriculum

👯 We are the people we need. Learning and skills for Climate Action/Sustainable Development/Green Transition

🎯 How do we get where? By definition we don’t know. But we have some know-how.

Part 2: First Hand

<aside> 🔦 “Place-based education generally centres around active learning to create a greater attachment to local community and context, while allowing [learners] to become proactive investigators of the multiple environments – cultural, ecological, social, political, economic – in which they both learn and live.” Place-based learning, a systematic review of literature, M Yemini (2023)

</aside>

<aside> 👉 "Learning at the workplace offers learners direct access to the innovative practices and technologies brought about by the green transition. It directly exposes them to changes as they happen at the workplace. Work-based learning can offer learners an opportunity to develop, while working, the skills needed for the green transition – both technical and transversal ones – which broaden learners’ understanding of a ‘greener’ way of working and living, in addition to raising awareness of environmental issues”

Part 1: Some thoughts on where we are in terms of climate skills (and how that led to First Hand)

🤷‍♀️ ‘We don’t do climate’: What are we talking about when we talk about learning for climate action?

🌎 Learning to do what? The search for a climate curriculum

👯 We are the people we need. Learning and skills for Climate Action/Sustainable Development/Green Transition

🎯 How do we get where? By definition we don’t know. But we have some know-how.

Part 2: First Hand

2.1 The First Hand context

2.2 The First Hand proposition

2.3 Our plan

2.4 Our call to action