On 30th July 2022, KAMY was invited to Kem Harapan at Khalsa Land, KKB to run an educational workshop on climate change. The event was jointly organised by Gerakan Se-Belia Sikh Malaysia (GBSM) and Safe School for Refugees (SSfR).
The workshop was run by KAMY member, Tessminderjit Kaur, who is also an educator. 35 refugee students were in attendance, some who shared that this was their first time getting a lesson on climate action.
We started the workshop with an icebreaker activity. The students were asked to close their eyes and imagine certain scenarios (drinking a glass of iced water on a really hot day and imagining how soothing it feels, feeling the wind in their hair at the beach as they hear the sound of waves crashing, etc.)
This helped the students understand that the planet is really important and gives us a lot of unique experiences. The students were then asked to share what their favourite experience revolving around the Earth was.
The students were then introduced to the concept of greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect. They were also shown pictures of actual greenhouses so they could further understand how a greenhouse works, and why an excess amount of greenhouse gas can be harmful.
We then discussed how human activities worsened climate change and what the impact of this looked like. Lots of visual aid (pictures of floods, deforestation, etc.) was used to further illustrate how devastating climate change can be. The highlight of this segment was when a video of a polar bear struggling to adapt to the changing climate was shown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JhaVNJb3ag
After the discussion on the effects of climate change, we moved on to the concept of carbon footprint and what it means. It was interesting to see how the student’s interpreted what the concept could mean without any guidance. No feet were compared though!
We further explored carbon footprint by dividing the students into smaller groups. Each group had to trace their hand onto a piece of paper. There was a lot of discussion on who had the biggest palm! The groups then listed out their own activities (5) that contributed towards a larger footprint on each finger of the hand. Then the fingers were extended and the students wrote five things they could do to reduce their footprint. The answers included buying second-hand clothes and reducing the plastic they use.