Activity A: Video Stories
The Video Stories activity punctuates the other 1.5 MAX Summit activities. The content of these five short videos has been selected to broadly align with the themes of COP27 and prominently features the voices of younger people.
This activity is designed to act as an effective ice-breaker, allowing participants to reflect on various aspects of Climate Change, and to openly discuss their reactions to the global emergency in a safe and supportive environment.
Allowing young people to express and share their thoughts and feelings about what they have encountered in the videos helps build personal confidence as well as highlighting the significance of what they are undertaking during the Summit.
This activity offers participants a springboard for building empathy for, and solidarity with, the members of their own group, their Cluster, and the wider cohort of young people taking part in the Summit from around the World.
Activity B: Keynote Speakers
In this activity, participants meet online to hear from a range of stakeholders and rights-holders—such as youth activists, representatives of non-governmental organisations, and academics—who are on the frontline of climate, environmental and sustainability action.
The talks and presentations offer diverse perspectives and act to connect participants to two of the Summit's core aims: to foster a sense of international solidarity and to highlight the global nature of the ongoing Climate and Ecological Emergency.
Activity C: Getting to Know You
This activity is designed to allow participants to discover more about each other's circumstances and experiences.
Before the Summit participating groups will have shared material about themselves online, ranging from their geographical location and social context to cultural matters like their food, sporting, or music traditions. Through this, participants from diverse backgrounds are given the opportunity to learn about each other's lives and to speak directly to people who are the same age as them, whether on the other side of their country or on the other side of the globe.
The purpose of the activity is to highlight that climate, environmental and sustainability issues impact everyone, allowing participants to build empathy for each other and for the plight of others.
This activity feeds into another of the core aims of 1.5 MAX: to generate an international network of support for positive community action.
Activity D: Country Comparisons
This activity develops systems thinking and critical literacy around the use of data and the topic of international climate change contributions.
The central question of this activity is, “Which countries are responsible for the world's biggest carbon emissions, and why?” Through examination of a selected sample set, space is provided for participants to take the lead in their own learning and to pursue the information which most interests them. This enhances the confidence of participants to engage with complex issues and to research and organise complex information.
Activity E: Ideas Lab
This two-day activity is at the centre of a 1.5 MAX Summit. In the weeks before the Summit each of the participating groups will have considered their local climate, environmental and sustainability challenges and prepared a ‘Problem Statement’ that identifies an element of particular interest or concern to them.
The Ideas Lab activity gives participants an opportunity to further develop their pre-summit work though tasks which feed into the Summit’s Panel Event and Climate Pledges session. This activity may also inform the Pledge to Project initiative, in which participants are encouraged to move beyond the Summit and towards real action for positive change in their community.
A wide range of problems are considered, such as pollution, resource extraction and use, soil erosion and deforestation, land use, infrastructure, carbon mitigation, waste management, vulnerabilities to extreme weather events like flooding or heatwaves, as well as possible adaptations to Climate Change and changes in practices.
Focusing on a local problem enables pupils to address real world issues impacting their day-to-day lives. Considering actions to solve or reduce local problems encourages young people towards a positive outlook and an empowered sense of engagement with climate, environmental and sustainability issues.
There are three elements to the Ideas Lab activity:
Ideas Lab Session 1: Problem Statements
The first Ideas Lab activity involves a review and discussion of the problem statements from each of the Summit's participating groups. The activity makes it clear that local climate and sustainability problems, although different, are global and experienced by everyone.
Ideas Lab Session 2: Problem Solutions
In the second Ideas Lab activity groups shift their focus to their own Problem Statement. Incorporating ideas gleaned from their review of the Problem Statements of other groups. Here the group work together to refine their thoughts and approaches as they develop a Problem Solution.
This activity promotes group-learning and provides an opportunity to work collaboratively on a matter of shared personal interest or concern while applying open and critical thinking.
Ideas Lab Session 3: Communications
Imagination and innovation are essential to break from the everyday practices which are driving the Climate and Ecological Emergency. The final Ideas Lab activity gives participants the opportunity to be inventive, to express themselves, and to communicate their ideas around positive change in a free and creative way.
Building further on their work and thinking, participating groups develop objects, project designs, campaigns, videos, prose or artworks inspired by the climate, environmental and sustainability problems they have been examining. These are presented to their Cluster groups and to the wider Summit as a whole through the Panel Event which follows.
Activity F: Panel Event
In this activity all Summit participants sit in with an international panel of climate and sustainability experts as they draw out some common themes they have encountered across the event. Offering support and encouragement, the Panel highlight novel ideas and best practice, and drawing on their own experience and expertise may even suggest potential next steps as the participants move towards making their Climate Pledges.
This activity is designed as a celebratory event which recognises the enthusiasm of the groups and the diversity of their approaches in addressing some of the issues facing their communities. It is also a chance for participants to say goodbye and thank-you to the other young people they have been working alongside.
Activity G: Climate Pledges
Making personal and group Climate Pledges brings into focus what can actually be achieved by individuals and groups to tackle the climate and sustainability problems they face. The pledges are framed as a public commitment towards positive action for positive change.
The scope of a pledge is not taken in isolation, as it can encompass everything from individual, to group, to wider community action.
Making public pledges is a sign of personal and group empowerment, demonstrating that young people can be, and are, active, responsible global citizens positively contributing to society and addressing the global issues that are playing out where they live.
Post-summit activities
Although not part of the scheduled event the 1.5 MAX Pledges to Project initiative builds on the interest, passion, and energy of the young people who have taken part, and supports them in making their Idea Lab work and Climate Pledges a reality. We have included some encouraging and practical suggestions in a document called 'How to make your pledge a reality' at the end of this event guide.