Turkey’s Climate Advocates launch one of the projects they have been working on since last year. Advocates led the Youth Climate Talks in four high schools, introducing 9th and 10th grade students to vital concepts on climate change and what they can do in their daily lives.

Green cars and green celebrities were the way to capture the attention of the young audience as Climate Advocates met with 9th and 10th grade students from four schools in Ankara. Youth Climate Talks marked the launch of one of the three projects the Climate Advocates from Turkey had set out to raise awareness on climate change last year.

Led by Vidad Semsir, a biology teacher in one of Ankara’s top high schools, the first group of Advocates worked together with a new group to develop an education module for the school curricula where ecology, environment, and climate change were introduced to students in a way to engage them and help them become better agents in the climate change debate.

The talks included the natural causes and human factors of climate change, , and what everyone can do in their daily lives. The first of these seminars took place in Middle East Technical University’s Foundation High School on 25 May. “I have learned what I can do to prevent the negative effects of climate change and global warming,” said one student, while another was happy to “clarify many of the blurry information on climate change.”

Further talks brought together students, teachers, the old and the new Climate Advocates in three other schools, TED Ankara, Yüce, and Private Science High Schools. “Youth Climate Talks initiated entertaining discussions among students where they felt that it is their platfom and they ask and comment,” remarked Özlem Gökalp, Science and Climate Change Projects Manager from British Council Turkey.

As part of the Education Module, exercises for Ecology lessons for 10th grade students will be introduced to teachers in high schools. Some of the topics of these exercises include human population growth, food web, water pollution, and green jobs. Hopefully, the Climate Change Education Module and the set of seminars will be part of the curricula in the following years, and work as an effective tool for high school teachers.

To underline the Climate Change effects here in Turkey, Turkish Climate Advocates kicked off a photography competition as well. The aim of the competition is to capture the side effects of Climate Change in Turkey. In their research, Climate Advocates realised that everything we can visualise regarding the after effects of climate change comes from the images that were taken away from the homeland which gives the wrong impression that the climate issue is a problem of the far lands. To tackle this impression and show to the Turkish audience that climate change is here, also, this photography competition was devised. The competition was launched in Istanbul on June 11,2010 with the participation of prominent jury members.

For further information on Challenge Europe, visit here, or send an email to Özlem Gökalp at ozlem.gokalp@britishcouncil.org.tr