In spring 2009, the Public Opinion Research Centre (CBOS) was commissioned by the British Embassy in Warsaw to carry out a survey of the attitudes and opinions of Poles on climate change . It turned out that the knowledge of the Polish public about these issues had been growing and that 95.8% of Poles took action, as individuals, to prevent climate change.

One of the objectives of the campaign “Climate change – be a solution” run as a part of the “Active by nature” programme implemented by the Centre for Citizenship Education since February 2009, is to engage young people and local communities in activities contributing to climate protection. The project won the competition organised by the British Embassy and received a grant of 5 000 GBP. The funds have been mainly spent on promotional activities and organisation of training for teachers and project team facilitators. The Ministry of Environment has taken the honorary patronage of the project.

In order to give you some more information about the scope of project activities, we have interviewed the project coordinators on behalf of the Centre for Citizenship Education, Gabriela Lipska and Nina Gałuszka.  

Agnieszka Tomaszewska (AT) : Can you remind us, what is your project about and what are its objectives?

CEO: Gabriela Lipska (GL), Nina Gałuszka (NG)

GL: The aim of the campaign „Climate change – be a solution”, organised by the Centre for Citizenship Education is to encourage schools to organise campaigns informing the public about climate change and the ways to prevent it by protecting natural resources such as water or energy.

AT: What activities have you managed to carry out so far and what have been the results?

NG: As part of the campaign „Climate change – be a solution” we have organised training sessions addressed to students and teachers in Warsaw, Kraków and Gdańsk. In the course of the training they have learnt how to deliver projects and organise campaigns on climate change topics so as to make them noticed by wider audiences. We have also prepared some classroom aids: “Worksheets” for students, lesson scripts, posters and stickers which have been sent to three thousand schools all over Poland.  

GL: The “Worksheets” have been an attractive form of classroom material for students as they have helped them undertake some simple obligations related to conservation of water and energy, which they can put into practice every day. Students will select certain types of obligations and fulfil them within a month, marking the frequency of individual activities on the worksheets. Then they will assess their own work, indicating what has interested them most, whether it has been easy for them to meet the obligation and what has helped them plan those and other similar activities in their own environment.  

AT: How many submissions have you received and from which regions of Poland?

GL: 62 schools from all over Poland actively have participated in the project, the most numerous have been the representations of mazowieckie and śląskie voivodships.

AT: Which aspects of the project do you feel most satisfied with and why?

NG: We have managed to combine the campaign activities with other interesting events, e.g. as part of the Warsaw Planete Doc Review festival, a special show of a film on climate change has been organised, to which we have invited 150 students from the schools that cooperate with our foundation, thus managing to broaden our audience.  

AT: Has there been anything that could have been organised better?

NG: In future campaigns of this type, it will be important to publicise the information about the campaign in the media, to include the media in the project to a greater extent and to consider various ways of getting access to them.  

AT: What are the opinions of the project participants?

GL: The schools that have decided to participate in the project have been satisfied, the format proposed to them has been interesting and concrete. The participants could choose from a pool of campaign ideas presented to them during the training sessions, they added their own ideas and had a chance to reach a great number of people with their message.

AT: Have any of the campaigns been special, different than others?

GL: We particularly liked the idea of the Junior Secondary School [Gimnazjum] no. 72 from Warsaw, who organised an Eco-demonstration in the capital and at the same time took some concrete action to conserve water and energy in their own school. The school has been granted the Green Flag certificate under the international Eco-schools programme.

AT: How do you assess young people’s knowledge and awareness of climate protection issues?

NG: Young people very often do not know that you can actually take actions to benefit the climate. Only after they have been shown that their individual actions do impact the environment in which they live, they start to understand the importance of the problem and develop the sense of empowerment.  

AT: What project activities are you planning for the coming months?

NG: By 5 October 2009 we will be waiting for applications to another edition of the programme „Active by nature”. We have noticed that the project „Climate change – be a solution” has built upon that theme and that schools applying to participate want to measure their carbon footprint with the use of the CO2 calculator. We are planning to continue the training in sustainable development with climate change as its integral part. An expert on climate change has already run an additional training session for our trainers and facilitators who work with children. It is also important for us to ensure that the new edition of the „Active by nature” programme be delivered with the lowest possible level of CO2 emissions.

AT: Is it still possible to cooperate with you and if so how to contact you?

GL: We invite all the interested schools to the new edition of the „Active by nature” programme, which will start in September 2009. More information and the application form can be found on the website www.edukacjaekologiczna.org .  

AT: Thank you for the interview.

*The event ending the project supported by the British Embassy in Warsaw will be held in November 2009 at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. One of its main elements will be an exhibition of works by students participating in the project „Climate change – be a solution”. You are all welcome!

Back to newsroom

Back to top