To celebrate the launch of the new Climate Education Course on September 20th, the School of Engineering is working with academics to put on several engaging and inspiring activities on the theme of climate action.
Unleadership for climate action
The activities will include an information stand on Unleadership, a movement that seeks to disrupt traditional leadership expectations, and to reveal alternative possibilities.
Inspired by leaderly acts from unexpected places during the Covid 19 pandemic, the movement was set up by UWE Bristol academics Professor Carol Jarvis, Professor Hugo Gaggiotti, Dr Kay Galpin and Associate Professor Selen Kars-Unluoglu.
It is based on the belief that leaderly practice can be characterised by paying forward kindness, accepting imperfection and embracing the unknown, taking action at the right time and collaborating with others. Unleadership thus means making the best possible contribution with the available resources, whilst being driven to act by a sense of purpose.
The Unleadership Team will run their stand on 20th September from 11am – 5pm in the Atrium of the School of Engineering, offering visitors an opportunity to learn more about their movement for change. Participants are invited to contribute to the creation of a shared artefact during the day to symbolise the collective commitments to climate action.
More information can be found on their event webpage.
Repair Acts
People attending the Climate Education Course Launch event will also get the chance to find out more about the Repair Acts project. Established in 2018, Repair Acts was initiated by the artist and UWE Bristol researcher Teresa Dillon, Professor of City Futures at the School of Art and Design, in partnership with with Professor Caitlin De Silvey, University of Exeter and Toxics Links, India.
Repair Acts explores repair, care, maintenance, and healing cultures. This is done by creating contexts for dialogue around restorative futures through making and building art works, carrying out desk and applied based research, designing, and developing art exhibitions, workshops, and conversational spaces.
People are invited to find out more about Repair Acts and their current activities, learn about histories of repair economies in Bristol, contribute their repair stories to the “People’s Archive of Everyday Repair” and add their views to the Repair Declaration for Bristol.
The information stand will run throughout the day in the Atrium of the School of engineering. More information can be found on the event page.
We Make Our Future planetarium show
Previously featured at COP26 in Glasgow, We Make our Future a show all about engineering and sustainability. Using full-dome digital projections, the audience will be taken on a trip to engineering marvels from history, followed by an exploration of the pros and cons of modern life.
Designed and co-developed with planetarium experts Explorer Dome and Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers, Associate Professor Engineering in Society, We Make Our Future sets out the idea that to achieve net zero and a low carbon global economy, everything we make and use will need to be completely re-imagined and re-engineered. It aims to show that the digital revolution is boosting the potential for engineers’ design thinking to optimise not only the development process but also the potential for collaborative citizen engagement. The show aims to inspire its audience to think scientifically and positively approach the Net Zero challenge!
More information and showtimes can be found on the events page.
Repair Skills Workshops
As a pre-launch of the university’s new monthly repair café, which is due to kick off in October, the School of Engineering’s technicians are offering two repair skills workshops to interested students and community members. Up to ten participants can get hands on repairing items, whilst more can follow the sessions as audience members, as repairs will be live streamed to a screen in the area.
The repair skills workshops and the repair café form part of the MAKERS project, which aims to improve belonging for diverse engineering students at UWE Bristol, through developing connections with local Maker and Repair communities in the West of England. Through co-development and repair workshops with local groups, students will be brought together in a purposeful and practical environment, enabling student community formation to generate peer support and friendship.
The Science Communication Unit has received nearly £90,000 funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Diversity Impact Programme to run the project.
More information about the repair skills workshops can be found on the university’s event pages.
For more information about any of the above events, please contact kat.corbett@uwe.ac.uk.