In November, “climate action teams” in 4 Bulgarian schools participated in creative seminars on the topic “Vision for the Future”. They set themselves the goal of creating their vision – a dream or a plan for their schools that would be climate neutral in two decades.
Being climate neutral means that our lifestyle does not further affect the climate by minimizing our emissions and maintaining the carbon sinks we already have (forests, wetlands, etc.) and creating new ones to offset even its minimum emissions.
The schools that held their workshops are:
- in Yambol – “Lyuben Karavelov” Primary School and “Vasil Karagyozov” Language High School
- in Dobrich – “P. R. Slaveykov” Secondary School and “Dimitar Talev” Secondary School
Prior to these workshops, students and teachers from the schools conducted an analysis of the school’s climate footprint, collecting and analyzing information on how the building is heated, how they travel to school, how they use water and collect waste, what the school’s food is like, etc. They also did their energy tour to find all the small and large reserves to reduce energy consumption. They played the fun game now being played across Europe, Climate Fresk, to learn and make sense of the whole complex picture of climate change locally and globally.
Thus, prepared and excited, the students and teachers invited representatives of the municipal administrations and various suppliers of goods and services for the schools, ecologists, environmentalists and parents to participate in their creative seminars.
The creative workshops took place in the form of a game, and the participants had the opportunity to exchange ideas and draw together the vision for the future of their school by applying what they learned in the various fields – transport, energy, nature, nutrition, etc.
The outcome of each of the workshops are roadmaps containing all shared ideas and activities that could help reduce the carbon footprint.
The work of the teams is to continue with the development of action plans, which will begin to be implemented already in the new year.
They are not just dreams, they are plans and young people will do their best to make them come true by spreading their ideas and attracting many partners.
