UWE Engineering’s Inspire Sustainability team took part in the Festival of Nature events in Bath and Bristol city centres between 7th and 15th of June – speaking to visitors about green jobs in our region.
The Festival of Nature is a huge annual celebration of the natural world, with a whole range of activities and events designed to engage local people in the environment. The Inspire team is taking part in these events as part of the Green Futures project funded by the West of England Combined Authority to inspire young people into green career pathways. The project has aims to see thousands of local school pupils and children with special educational needs, but also has an emphasis on family engagement – recognising the role parent’s play in shaping children’s careers.
“Create a wind turbine nature park” was the activity on offer at the team’s stalls at SouthGate Place in Bath, and Millennium Square in Bristol. Over three days, 750 people crafted their ideas for the nature park onto tablecloth collages, all whilst having conversations about the real people who care for nature parks and are involved in installing wind turbines in local communities.
At the Bristol Festival during “Wild Weekend”, the Inspire team joined the UWE Bristol marquee and, with the help of a few UWE student ambassadors, added in another element to activities – challenging children to take part in a hunt for green jobs. Young people searched for posters placed around the festival marquees depicting people in green roles – including Engineering’s own Laura Fogg-Rogers.
Local child, Maisie, won the competition and a pack of “Inspire Green Futures” card packs.
Also on at the Bristol event was the “Great Green Expectations” training session led by UWE partner Liz Lister from Graphic Science – to aid educators incorporating green jobs into their lessons. The Inspire team will be running more of these sessions for educators and ambassadors in the autumn – please get in touch if interested – engineeringourfuture@uwe.ac.uk.
The team had great conversations with a whole range of visitors: from connecting teachers and community leaders in to the Inspire resources, to conversations with a student wanting to use dance to promote environmentalism.
Two wonderful weekends where UWE engaged the community in green jobs – thanks to the West of England Combined Authority for funding this important work raising awareness of the need in, and new emerging opportunities for, green jobs.
