Education is one of the key planks of the ECO Centre’s objectives. This covers the broader education of the wider public and working within the education system itself.

The Education department currently receives funding via short term contracts as well as a one off donations by a charitable trust and local business. Otherwise the department is being supported by ECO Centre core funds.

At the time of writing, the pioneering Visitor Centre is unable to secure sufficient funding to be kept open and is being forced to close at the August 2009.

Programme Development

The Education Programme has evolved around the perceived need of educators and participants in community activities, and the design and development of projects and activities that push the ESDGC and climate change education agenda forward. This is a result of the experience and expertise of the staff involved.

The focus for the education programme continues to be Climate Change Wales – a programme that contextualises climate change in Wales. It looks at causes and consequences, mitigation and adaptation.  We are very keen to maintain its core brief of providing data, resources, materials and inspiration to pupils and teachers alike across Wales, to assist in the teaching about and learning of climate change issues across the curriculum. Our published material is designed and written by qualified teachers and peer reviewed by serving teachers and other educators.  Under the auspices of Climate Change Wales the ECO Centre undertakes in-school presentations and projects and maintains a popular bilingual website that takes a very multi-media approach to the subject. We have produced short films, animations, ‘paper’ resources, interactive games and exercises that are all age relevant and curriculum linked.

Our most recent schools project is ClimArt which is aimed at Primary School pupils . Climate Change and sustainability are hard subjects to teach in a meaningful way to very young children. Hard, but not impossible. Working with the renowned Small World Theatre, we have worked in five schools to produce sculptures, models, puppets and models that encapsulate what the children have learnt over a week of stories, poetry, talking and playing about the world and climate change.  This has had a tremendous response from participating schools and the extension of the ClimArt project to other schools would benefit a great number of the next generation.

Through our community work, most visibly represented by our Visitor Centre, we reach members of the county population – and beyond – who are keen to actually implement measures and changes in their lifestyle that will contribute to a lower impact on the environment. In many cases this is providing an opportunity for them that they might not normally get. Such as the renewable energy question time. We arranged for installers and planners and renewable energy experts to be available to provide answers to common and not so common questions about the practicalities of installing a range of technologies.  Awareness of renewable energy, green building and the alternatives to fossil fuel reliance has grown enormously over the last decade. And it is incumbent on organisations like the ECO Centre to provide information and access to information that people can rely on. Our links with the industry, planners, installers and people who have successfully implemented these technologies means we are ideally placed to join the dots between them and pass the expertise on.

Training

Schools and Teachers
Working one to one with staff on school visits can yield some positive results, but it is very labour intensive. Exploiting established methods will be much more cost effective, both for us and anyone who funds us. The best examples of this are the networking meetings held locally and nationally; and the INSET training days held by each local authority.  Here, staff with an interest are generally gathered together for the express purpose of increasing their own capacity.  There are indications of a small demand from advisors in education authorities for assistance in creating training days about ESDGC.

The opportunity for us is to establish an ‘off the shelf’ package that can be delivered to advisors and teachers alike. It would include curriculum links, ‘innovation’ – creative thinking around ESDGC, and resources – either our own or others known to be available.

Community

The ECO Centre has held a number of sporadic training sessions over the years, and these have always proved popular.  Extending the Visitor Centre from that of passive and reactive to pro-active is a logical way for the ECO Centre to increase its effectiveness and raise its profile.  Research as shown a need for accessible training for DIY renewable energy installations.  The ECO Centre is a natural provider of this service with our skills, contacts, equipment and location.

We accept that there are a number of well-established training courses for common renewables, but our research shows an appetite for good value one day ‘tasters’ and one day ‘serious’ courses. The other courses are for a few days and are not cheap.

Evaluation

Much of the broad education programme is measurable in terms of its impact e.g. number of schools visited, number of pupils reached, number of teachers registered on the website, number of INSET sessions conducted, number of workshops delivered, number of website hits and downloads, number of visitors to the visitor centre, number of courses run, number of attendees, number of events around and about. As this is recordable, it is also possible to follow-up with beneficiaries and calculate the number of installations that have gone ahead, size of measure and carbon saving (we can link this with our project ‘the People’s Power Station which looks at the contribution of small scale and microgeneration to Wales’ total RE generation).

What we have done so far, since 2005:

• Climate Change Wales programme funded in 2006 for two years.
• Launched in December 2007 by Jane Davidson AM Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing.
• ClimArt – art education activities with Small World Theatre, launched in April 2008
  • We have completed 4 week long programmes in primary schools where pupils participate in workshops about climate change, energy efficiency and renewable energy.  The pupils then complete a large scale art installation in response to climate change.
• Delivered  Compost Support contract to Pembs CC – May 2006 – March 2008, working with schools and community volunteers.
• Visitor Centre received 4000 visitors per year.

Short term contracts .

• Inconvenient Truth Pack for Schools for the Welsh Assembly Government
• Climate Change Learning Resources for the Welsh Assembly Government
  • We authored for the Welsh Assembly Government a follow up pack of curriculum based resources for Secondary students in a range of subjects which was distributed to all secondary schools
• Publications review, editing and training for the Countryside Council for Wales
  • We edited resources for the Countryside Council for Wales to link them with the curriculum, as well as reviewing some of their existing materials and providing training for their publications staff.
• Climate Change Resources to support Eco Schools topics for Keep Wales Tidy
  • Classroom resources across the key stages linked to the Eco Schools topics
  • We were the lead partner project managing writers from the Botanic Gardens, Centre of Alternate Technology and the University of Bangor as well as writing content ourselves.

•  FIT for Purpose Conference – first international conference on the forthcoming FIT legislation.
• Holiday activities with ‘Live Lightly’ and Visitor Centre staff.
• Question Time around the County; ‘Removing Barriers to Renewable Energy Developments’; ‘From Fork to Fork’; ‘Renewable Energy and Planning’.
• INSET Training
  • Training sessions across Wales in association with the National Museum Group of Wales for Secondary Teachers
  • Training for education officers in Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and officers from the Eco Schools programme.
  • Sessions on a training day on climate change for Pembrokeshire Primary school teachers, delegates at the Swansea Sustainable schools conference and Ceredigion teachers engaged in the Eco Schools programme.
  • A course on learning activities associated with composting for primary school teachers.
• Community Education courses, visits and workshops covering renewable energy, permaculture and green building
• Support for Transition Initiatives including presentations, promotion of events and help with funding applications.
• Sustainable Schools Award Scheme
  • Workshops and talks on energy and climate change to over 2,500 students in schools across Pembrokeshire.
  • Support and resources for teachers over the phone and via email.
  • Played an active roll in school assessments and steering group meetings.
• Gave 6 school students work experience between 2007 and 2009