Alongside the poster series I ran education sessions for the school groups visiting the Kampos Information Centre. The topic was marine life and wetlands.
Engaging young people in conservation was more complex than I expected. Ecophobia, nihilism, and the daily distractions they deal with all made it harder to hold their attention.
So the sessions were built to be dynamic. I opened with a large projected image of a wetland scene, before any facts, and let the students say what they noticed. Once they were curious, I brought in the science through diagrams, short videos, and exercises. Humour throughout, memes and detours, to prevent it from being sterile. Questions were kept open rather than closed and I tried to hold multiplicity.
The sessions follow a framework I developed at Archipelagos and am still refining, Helping People Learn About the Environment. It starts with wonder, then grounds the subject in interconnected context of history, ecology, economics, and art, and moves toward harder questions about why we see the world the way we do.
In Practice
Student looking through binoculars
Presentation on wetlands
Mock trial: learn about MPAs