Climate Education Kick-Off in Chile!

Raising awareness of climate issues among students is gaining momentum around the world. This month, we turn towards Chile, where Freskers moved into action in a university!

It happened in the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, or UCSC, which is based in the town of Concepción, in the Biobio region of southern Chile, 600km from Santiago. Pierre Geneste, the Country Coordinator for Climate Fresk in Chile, came into contact with UCSC through the teams at the Faculty of Science and its Dean, Florence Tellier, whose father is also a Fresker

Florence Tellier and Paulina Medina, her closest colleague, motivated their team and staff to get the workshop up and running. All together, they reached the other faculties and the university management to convince them to organise a Climate Education Kick-Off (CEKO) and to include professors from all 9 faculties. UCSC was particularly motivated with regards to two objectives: raising awareness among several hundred people over a few days, and showing the way by being the first university in Chile to hold a CEKO event. 

A successful challenge! Pierre trained 23 teachers over two days, before starting workshops with students, alongside running coaching sessions for the new Freskers. Nearly 200 people were reached in total, mostly students but also other members of staff.

Using this first event as an example and a springboard, the Country Coordinators now hope to motivate other universities to organise workshops or even other CEKOs. In the coming months, the organisation of an even bigger event is expected with the Universidad Andrés Bello, in Santiago… Something to keep an eye on

Thank you to Ci2030 for funding part of this project.

To note: the CEKO events have not yet been officially translated into Spanish! For the moment, they are referred to with the English terms, or expressions such as “El Mural Del Clima en la educación supérior” or “éducation climática en la educación superior”.

Climate Collage is now Climate Fresk!

We are still the same! We just changed our name ;)