Klimadetektive ist offizielles Projekt im Aktionsplan Klimaschutz Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Climate scale

Target group

Teachers

Learning aims

The climate scale is a public relations instrument which is aimed at teachers. They should be made aware that themes such as climate protection and energy efficiency have many connections to education and school life. They should be motivated to dedicate themselves to climate protection in the scope of their work and use the support materials from the campaigns ‘climate detectives’ (www.umweltschulen.de/klima/) and/or Energy-Education-Governance-Schools EGS (www.egs-project.eu/).

The climate scale is also a surveying instrument. It serves to collect knowledge about how much the teachers and/or their school is already active in climate protection and how they see the results of this work.

Short description

The climate scale has already been used at several meetings/conferences for teachers in North Germany. It is an approx. 1m high wooden scale with 2 weighing pans. There are 20 different questions, with several examples of each printed out on index cards. The questions were formulated in such a way that you can answer with a simple YES or NO; e.g. ‘Do you deal with climate protection in your teaching’ or ‘is there a board in your school that is responsible for environmental and/or climate protection?’

Each teacher was asked to pick three cards – and therefore a random selection from the 20 questions. If they could answer a question with YES; they were asked to put the corresponding card in the left scale pan; otherwise the card should be placed in the right scale pan. Each participating teacher received a flyer about the above mentioned campaigns at the end.

The balance of the scales gave a first clear picture of climate protection in schools; by counting up all the cards handed in at the end of the day, detailed information could be obtained.

Reflection

In the case of large events the participants are overwhelmed with various information and often spend very little time looking at individual information stands. The climate scale is very suitable for addressing participants under these conditions and arousing their interest for this topic.

The detailed evaluation of the survey revealed facts which were published and influenced the further development of the campaigns named above.

More information

• All questions and the results

More more information

(Sorry: only in German language):

• Klimawaage
• Klimadetektive