How are we staying in touch with our own relationships to the issues over time? How did you think about climate issues last year compared to today? How do we document and use our own personal climate data?

Everyone responds to climate change differently and it’s important we all feel represented in the conversation, especially as mainstream coverage might not connect to our day to day concerns at a local or personal scale. This session looks at different ways to communicate our everyday experiences connected to climate and environmental changes, by reflecting on how we feel and how we want to express ourselves.

The main activity will be to create our own ‘personal climate language’ as a paper stencil. We will use drawing and conversation to fill our individual stencils with symbols that represent a range of our feelings and experiences related to climate change. By the end, each participant will have their own personal language stencil to express climate issues. The stencil format encourages us to take them home for an easy way to begin tracking our own emotions and thoughts in a daily climate diary. What range of colours and symbols would a month or a season of personal climate tracking look like? How can we recognise patterns to encourage more positive relationships to our local and global situations?

This workshop is also available as a postal activity pack you can do at home and at your own pace. Please email d.m.bell@lboro.ac.uk with your address if you would like a free pack posting out.

Accessibility

This 2hr workshop (with a short break) is free and open to everyone – no experience in crafts or climate change necessary and children are welcome with guardians. The Pitts Room at Fearon Hall is on the ground floor with step-free access.

Local travel reimbursements can be made available to participants who would otherwise be unable to take part: please contact Laura Purseglove (l.purseglove@lboro.ac.uk) for more information.

This workshop is being hosted by Angela YT Chan as part of Radar’s Ecological Thinking programme.