Over 50 organisations united for this virtual week of climate action 9-13th November. ICN’s secondary school session ‘Bring COP26 to your classroom’ on Tuesday 10 November, 14:40 – 15:20 saw the launch of our new COP26 Classroom Resource.

ICN has adapted its UN-style climate conferences for secondary schools to be able to bring COP26 into the classroom.  Everything is included so that you can hold your own COP26 climate conference in 2021 and be part of the global momentum for building greater climate ambition. The session film here gives details of what’s included and ideas for how to use the resource.

There is terrific input in the film from two young people who have been inspired to continue their focus on climate change in their studies and decisions, along with scenes from a Climate Conference in action (Hounslow 2019).  We also asked three questions for those online for our session and these are their responses:

1. How urgent do you believe it is that we step up action on the climate crisis?

  • 100% of those responding said either Extremely urgent (83%) or Urgent (17%)

2. Where do you get your own inspiration for taking climate action?

  • 50% said from Organisations & networks
  • 33% are inspired by TV / Social Media
  • 17% said from School

3. Who do you believe has the most power to change the course of climate change?

  • 80% believe that Governments have the most power
  • 20% said Businesses & Corporations

One question from on-line participants that there was a chance to answer was “What is the best outcome of being part of it?”  In response, we fed back that at the end of the Climate Conferences last year,  students were asked to say what taking part had meant:

  • 83% of the young people across all the conferences agreed, “I know how I could take action and influence others”
  • 83% said taking part means they now want to “Influence friends and family”.

The packed schedule of inspiring online and recorded sessions from Youth Climate Summit 2020 is available to view at https://www.transform-our-world.org/events/youth-climate-summit-2020

Contact us to find our more about the COP26 Climate Classroom resource using schools@interclimate.org

Written by

Michila Critchley