70 Kindergarten Teachers Join Record-breaking Educational Event On Climate Change

Kaitiaki Kindergartens and Climate Club Aotearoa have joined forces to deliver New Zealand’s biggest ever Climate Fresk event to 70 kindergarten teachers, at 10 Fresk tables, empowering them to have climate change conversations in their communities.

The Climate Fresk (‘Fresk’ meaning ‘fresco’ or ‘big picture’) is a facilitated game developed in France explaining the causes and effects of climate change and empowering participants to take impactful actions in their local contexts. Played by over 1.8 million people globally and over 1,200 in New Zealand, the popularity of Climate Fresk is growing exponentially.

“By offering this mass learning event to Kindergarten teachers, we are helping to secure the future for our tamariki,” says Emily Mabin Sutton, GM of Climate Club Aotearoa.

“Action on climate change needs to be immediate and urgent. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which represents 195 countries, has stated unequivocally that human activities are causing the climate to change.

“The science is clear, it’s time we understood it,” says Mabin Sutton, “and this engaging, interactive card game gives everyone access to this knowledge in a fun way to see how they can take action on a complex topic.”

The decisions we make this decade will reverberate for thousands of years, according to the IPCC.

Kaitiaki Kindergartens General Manager, Tara Solomon, asks, “Will we wait for this next generation to teach us the lessons of tomorrow, or will we take ownership and step up to the responsibility of protecting these children’s future?”

Early childhood education is a great connector of communities, as children naturally develop a sense of belonging in their local places and with the people they feel connected to. Early childhood settings can support families and children’s rights to a viable future.

“We see sustainability as a core strategy to ensure our tamariki can enjoy a secure future on a liveable planet, as our generation has experienced. The Climate Fresk is a wonderful tool around which this conversation can take place,” says Solomon.

The actions section of the Climate Fresk helps participants see their role in wider society. As teachers brainstormed actions they could take using their ‘climate superpowers’ as role models, consumers, investors, organisational participants and citizens, they were encouraged to think about the systems that make up the main polluting sectors of agriculture, transport, building usage and industry.

Teachers considered lobbying local politicians for better child-friendly city designs; creating communication campaigns to share learnings with parents; identifying opportunities for circular economies across other early childhood education service providers to reduce consumption and waste; and designing education strategies for both teachers, children and parents around sustainability.

“We loved the format of the Climate Fresk session as it didn’t leave us hanging at the ‘what’s happening for our planet’ stage, but helped us identify actions that would really make a difference,” says Solomon.

The Climate Fresk is deliberately designed to empower participants to think beyond their individual actions. “We need people thinking ‘up the system’, because structural change is needed alongside lifestyle transitions,” says Mabin Sutton. “Enabling people to see the impact they can make within and across our social systems, challenging the status quo of organisations they engage with, and feeling empowered as citizens to really make a difference is very rewarding work.”

“We’re excited and proud to run New Zealand’s biggest Climate Fresk event to raise awareness of the climate crisis, thanks to funding support by Auckland Council and amazing mahi by our community workshop manager Naomi Pocock,” says Mabin Sutton. “Helping everyone see how we can all take action is the key to fighting apathy and building the future we all want for our children.”

Funding support for Climate Club to deliver Climate Fresk workshops is provided by Auckland Council through the Auckland Climate Grant.

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