March 05, 2024
The Design school at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University is actively promoting the core value of “Education for Sustainable Development”. To accelerate this effort, the Sustainability Steering Group of the School is facilitating workshops and events to deliver key knowledge and skills for all the staff and students in 2024.
As one of the key strategy, the school will organize interactive workshops provided by the Climate Fresk Association for all, which will deliver core knowledge related to causes and consequences of climate change. The first workshop was held for the Steering Group, student representatives of the School, and EDU team leader of XJTLU.
The Climate Fresk Association is an international NGO aiming to raise people and organisations’ awareness about climate change since 2018. The workshop, being a card-based serious game, is widely accepted in more than 130 countries/regions with 1.5 million participants worldwide.
“When we talk about climate change, a lot of people may think it is very far away from them or difficult to understand. With this workshop, we hope to raise understanding first, and then to trigger sustainable actions to reduce carbon emissions,” says Angel, the tutor from the Climate Fresk Association.
In the 3-hour workshop, participants from different disciplines of the Design School formed in groups, working together to connect 42 cards representing the different components of climate change to find the links between causes and effects.
Zhiyu Shao, a Year 4 architecture student who attended the workshop, says: “After the workshop, I’ve gained more knowledge about sustainability and climate change. Also, the way of teaching us knowledge by cards really makes the learning much more interesting.”
Another participant, Yiqun Sun from XJTLU’s Educational Development Unit, also says that she loves the interactive and game elements of the workshop, and she has learned a lot about climate change.
Following the Climate Fresk workshop, the XJTLU Cinema Club also screened a movie, Don’t Look Up (2021), telling the story of two low-level astronomers trying to warn humankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth.
In the future, the Steering Group and student representatives will become facilitators to deliver such workshops for all students and staff in the School.
By Yi Qian
Photos by Yi Qian and Yi Wang
March 05, 2024