Take the Climate Week Challenge

by Startacus Admin

As a nation, we are somewhat obsessed with the weather…and who could blame us?

Few other places in the world have the potential to experience such dramatic variations, whether we are buried in snow or baking in the summer sun, our favorite small-talk staple is never far from our lips.

It’s National Climate week, and it couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time with the country still reeling from an incessant parade of Atlantic storms over recent months. It’s fair to say that our love affair with the countless quirks of our fickle weather is beginning to turn a little sour.  

Climate Week is the UK’s biggest annual climate change campaign and tasks itself with the noble objective of inspiring a new wave of action in our battle against man-made climate change.   It does this through encouraging the public as well as businesses, charities, churches, councils and communities to host events aimed at raising awareness of the major issues at hand, encouraging people to live more ecologically aware lives and showcasing practical solutions to the challenges from all sectors of society.

For a campaign which was only first delivered in March 2011 it has had a lightning fast uptake by the public, with over half a million people taking part in some 3000 events across the country last year alone.  

Take the Climate Week Challenge    

The campaign organizers are hoping that this year will see their highest number of attendees to date, with much anticipation centering upon the return of the wildly popular ‘Climate Week Challenge’. The challenge is a great way for absolutely anyone to get involved in Climate Week by organizing a designated group activity which is suitable for teams of 4-6 people of any age.   The activities (outlined by the Climate Week Team) are intended to promote creativity, team-work, innovation and enterprise whilst allowing participants to tackle real-life environmental issues to a deadline… right up Startacus’ street then!

There are two ‘versions’ of the challenge -  one lasting an hour and the other a day and each is divided up into seven age brackets ranging from primary school children right up to senior managers. All are given the same task with varying levels of sophistication expected from their results. Here are some of the best ideas which were submitted in previous years:  

• A board game called Greenopoly in which players must make money by ‘going green’.

• The Fidget- a gadget that converts the energy of fidgeting children into electricity. Climate Week funded the team to visit a professional laboratory, where they created a working prototype that charges a mobile phone.

• A supermarket refrigerator that is powered by the opening and closing of its door as well as energy from nearby sounds.  Climate Week arranged a workshop run by retail professionals to help the group develop their idea.

• Conversion of uglymulti-storey car parks into havens for wildlife, where cars would be parked amongst the vegetation and animals.

The challenge is open to anyone, can be completed on any day of climate week and require absolutely no prior preparation.  Visit the Climate Week site for all the information you will need and to check out what events are taking place in your local area!

If you are the eco-friendly, environmentally conscious type then you might like to take a quick gander at some of these recent pieces (and don’t forget to keep an eye out for some more climatically themed stuff on the way this week.)

• How to start on the path to becoming a green entrepreneur

• Spotting entrepreneurial opportunities in the green economy

• Three key lessons for green entrepreneurs

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• #environment
• #green economy
• #climate week

Published on: 1st March 2014