This blog documents our ‘Energy Collaboratory’ research project that is currently being undertaken with children and young people accessing the services within the St Paul’s Community Development Trust in Birmingham, England.
‘Collaboratory’ is a hybrid term bringing together collaboration and laboratory; emphasising an exploration that is shared, experimental and open to new ways of thinking and learning together.
The aim of our research is to notice ways children and young people respond to and learn about energy-related issues, both through a local and global lens.
This is conducted through facilitating and commissioning energy-related activities and workshops, and observing children and young people’s interactions with the more-than-human aspects of the energy source.
The purpose of this project is to advance our understanding of children’s relations with the environment in order to better understand children and young people’s creative responses to the role of energy in climate change related issues.
We are actively engaging with the staff and educators at the St Paul’s Community Development Trust to develop and share new types of energy-related pedagogies; ways of learning and teaching that are responsive to the climate change challenges of our times.
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
