March/April 2020

| 34 | March/April 2020 www.smartmachinesandfactories.com | PRIMARY ENGINEER | Climate change challenge F or most adults, the question of how to reduce your impact on climate change is a simple one; cycle instead of using the car, hold virtual meetings, fly less, make more educated food choices. For children, answering that question is a different proposition. Some may understand the impact of their parents using the car less, but do they know how they, themselves, can make a positive contribution towards their own carbon footprint. As we have seen over the last few years, the voice of school children is getting louder, demanding and protesting for change. How can we turn that energy into informed and committed action? On the 18th March, at DataFest in Glasgow, Primary Engineer will launch the STATWARS: Climate Change Challenge to schools across the UK. Our vision is to empower and educate pupils to tackle climate change, through the use of a data driven project. We believe the data we collect can inform meaningful research and decision making, with its careful application revolutionising our understanding of how to manage the climate change challenge ahead of us! As well as government, industry and the adult population, we need young people to be a part of that journey. As ever, Primary Engineer has produced teaching resources and datasets to enable and support classroom teaching. Our call out to you reading this, is to join us in providing insights into your work that will better inform and contextualise both the data and the challenge. The STATWARS: Climate Change Challenge asks pupils to use big and small datasets to identify 3 changes they can personally commit to in their daily lives that will lower their individual carbon footprint. Pupils work in small teams and will use their data skills to communicate their What three things would you personally change to affect climate change? Susan Scurlock, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer explains.