Some of the Kintyre Climate Action team went back to school for an afternoon in the last full week before the Christmas holidays, to help deliver a workshop on one of Scotland’s ‘Climate Action Towns’.
‘Think global, act local’ was the resounding message as S3 geography students from Campbeltown Grammar School, who have been learning about sustainable cities around the world, from Singapore to Oslo and from Copenhagen to Dubai, were led by their teacher Mrs Watson in exploring policies adopted elsewhere, to get the pupils thinking about climate-minded actions that could potentially help Campbeltown in the future.
Campbeltown is one of nine Scottish communities designated as a Climate Action Town by the Scottish Government, all experiencing unique potential threats when considering the potential future impact of climate change.
Kintyre’s largest settlement has been one of the towns earmarked for climate action since 2021.
Sharyn Lock, Kintyre Climate Action’s climate action development co-ordinator, was joined by Mark Dowey and Ness Wright, senior design officers at Architecture and Design Scotland (ADS), who have been leading Climate Action Towns on behalf of Holyrood.
After an introduction by Mark Dowey with an overview of the Climate Action Towns concept, the pupils looked at both the project’s potential pitfalls and conservation opportunities specific to Campbeltown, and were asked to pair off and think about how the climate adaptation lessons they have learned from afar can be applied in a similar way in a smaller community of some 5,000 people.
Some of the pupils’ earlier learning in the year fed into their thinking for the area they live in: non-vehicular travel to work, study or leisure (as do around 80% of the people of Copenhagen); the use of trees to absorb CO2 in Singapore and to help control temperatures in built-up urban areas.
A Kintyre Climate Action spokesperson said: “Activities such as the workshop we held with Mrs Watson’s S3 geography class in Campbeltown Grammar are really important in spreading knowledge around climate change’s potential impact, even at a local level, and to inspire the next generations in Campbeltown and Kintyre into taking climate-friendly action – and making climate-friendly choices – in their own communities.”
