Green Futures at the Festival of Nature

The Inspire Sustainability team took part in the Festival of Nature events in Bath and Bristol city centres on 7th, 14th and 15th of June, speaking to families about green jobs. The Festival of Nature is a huge annual celebration of the natural world, with a whole range of activities and events to engage local people in the environment.

“Create a wind turbine nature park” was the activity on offer at the team’s stalls at SouthGate Place in Bath, and Millennium Square in Bristol. Over three days, 750 people came and crafted their ideas for the nature park onto tablecloth collages, all whilst having conversations about the real people who care for nature parks and are involved in installing wind turbines in local communities.

At the Bristol Festival during “Wild Weekend” – children were also invited to take part in a hunt for Green Jobs – searching for posters placed around the festival marquees depicting people in green roles. Local child, Maisie, won the competition and a pack of “Inspire Green Futures” card packs.

Also on at the Bristol event was the “Great Green Expectations” training session led by Liz Lister from Graphic Science – to aid educators incorporating green jobs into their lessons. The team will be running more of these sessions for educators in the autumn – please get in touch if interested – engineeringourfuture@uwe.ac.uk

The team had great conversations with a whole range of visitors: from connecting teachers and community leaders in to the Inspire resources, to conversations with a student wanting to use dance to promote environmentalism.

Two wonderful weekends engaging the community in green jobs – thanks to the West of England Combined Authority for funding this important work raising awareness of the need in, and new emerging opportunities for, green jobs.