Climate at school: let’s take the challenge

“An afternoon devoted to the exchange of ideas and experiences, an occasion to confront and have fan, to enrich one’s self, a place that made us feel welcomed”.

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This is what Lorenzo Zottele, one of the participants in the project Visto Climatico of the Association Viração&Jangada, had said when describing the activity at the Katowice high school Zespół Katolickich Szkół.

Lorenzo and other fifteen participants are in Katowice as reporters at the Conference of Youth on Climate Change (COY14) and at the UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP24). They write articles, take photos and produce videos to describe the events. All their contents are published on the Youth Press Agency’s website and social media accounts. But on November 30, these young people had the opportunity to visit the high school Zespół and get to know some of its students who are committed to the promotions of environmentalist initiatives to fight the effects of climate change.
Yesterday afternoon started with a warm welcoming introduction given by the teachers Mariusz Kamrowski and Bozena Kurzeja and by the headmaster Andrzej Kita and went on with a short presentation of the main projects that were realized in the school throughout the years. They are environmental projects that attracted our interest and curiosity: “we planted a forest after the environmental disaster that hit Katowice in 2005”, “one month ago, we invented a device to measure the air quality because, as you probably know, Poland is very much polluted”, “we suggest as an alternative to the production of meat, the consumption of insects that, we assure you, are also tasty”.

The afternoon spent at the Polish school has been not only the time to debate over the important topic of how to save the planet, but also to experiment an educommunication workshop which has brought together politics, climate change and communication. Groups of Italian and Polish youngsters worked together to find some curious questions to be asked to the negotiators who will be present at the COP24 in December, 3-14. The most interesting ones were photographed by Ilaria Mezzacasa and Federico Peruzzo, printed and given to the youngsters as a memory of the day.

In the effort to represent and mobilise an increasing number of young people, the Youth Press Agency will do what it does every year at the COP24: interview some of the negotiators who come from the 197 States which have signed the Paris Accords. In addition to that, this year our press agency will tell them the proposals of the Polish students – which are just like our, as we all demand concrete actions and significative changes to built a more sustainable and fair society.

Our experience at the Zespół Katolickich Szkół came to an end among laughs and songs and a piece of chocolate cake with coffee. We were (and still are) filled with the satisfaction and happiness to have known new passionate people aware of the complexity and urgency of tackling the topic of climate change. Despite the initial shyness of debating with new individuals, “breaking the ice was not that big of a deal. They students are very nice too” – as our report Ginevra Gottardi puts it.