Climate change catastrophe!

Climate Change Catastrophe! goes to COP26

Climate Change Catastrophe! is a new show about climate change, made by children, for grown-ups. This Ingenious funded project was run by the theatre company Cap-a-Pie in collaboration with Newcastle University’s School of Engineering and gives inspiring perspectives on one of the biggest challenges of our time – climate change. The show focuses on what children think of climate change, their hopes, fears and ideas for the future.

For project Lead and Cap-a-Pie producer Katy Vanden, this project has been a goal for years for the theatre company. “We wanted to make a show about climate change for a really long time, and we wanted children to be part of it. The kids we worked with had been watching a lot of climate change reports on Newsround, but this project shows there are solutions.”

Together with Newcastle School of Engineering, Cap-a-Pie worked with scientists and researchers, to condense their work into lesson plans, incorporating starter activities, main activities, and plenaries. Participating schools were then sent the resources for teachers to introduce to their Key Stage 2 students. The children were then tasked with creating characters, scripts, scene ideas and drawings. These were then used by Cap-a-Pie to inspire the content of the theatre show.

Presenting the show at COP26

Having responded to an open call out for public engagement projects from communities and charities, the project team received the exciting news that the filmed performance of Climate Change Catastrophe! has been chosen to feature at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) taking place in Glasgow.

The 45-minute film will be shown at 12.30-13.30 on 12th November, with the Cap-a-Pie team and Dr Alistair Ford, Lecturer in Geospatial Data Analytics and Policy Academy Fellow at Newcastle University, attending the event to answer questions after the screening. The film will then be streamed on the COP26 YouTube page and the film will be available to watch for free.

Going back to a blank sheet

The original plan for the project involved the theatre company and engineers joining teachers and children in schools to create a 50-minute in-person show. However, when schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team had to completely rework the project, instead creating a filmed version of the performance based on the children’s ideas and sharing it with the schools that inspired their work.

Having to rethink the project was a challenge but Katy says the team embraced the new opportunity. “It’s useful to restart back with a blank sheet of paper with your outcomes in mind, in all our projects we managed to reach the same or similar and now being really flexible, thinking how you can be most useful”.

Katy and the team were also motivated by the positives of moving projects online. “There’s definitely things we’ll take forward from moving things online, for example the performance with becoming a film, that meant that we could submit it to be a part of COP 26. There’s also things teachers can do independently in school before we go in.”

Working with schools

When asked about best practice for approaching and working with schools during an Ingenious project, Katy feels that the chosen topic was key. “Lots of people try and match the curriculum. Climate change isn’t on the curriculum but with children it is always top of the list of their interests.”

Even with relationships already established from previous work, the topic of climate change helped the team reach a wider audience. “We have good relationships with schools in the local area, but the topic really helped reach new schools, it’s something teachers want to talk about but don’t necessarily feel equipped to.”

Katy and Cap-a-Pie aimed to challenge misconceptions of the work that work engineers do; “The opportunity to work with the engineers and show their work – what a great opportunity that is!”

When asked about best practice for approaching and working with schools during an Ingenious project, Katy feels that the chosen topic was key. “Lots of people try and match the curriculum. Climate change isn’t on the curriculum but with children it is always top of the list of their interests.”

Even with relationships already established from previous work, the topic of climate change helped the team reach a wider audience. “We have good relationships with schools in the local area, but the topic really helped reach new schools, it’s something teachers want to talk about but don’t necessarily feel equipped to.”

Katy and Cap-a-Pie aimed to challenge misconceptions of the work that work engineers do; “The opportunity to work with the engineers and show their work – what a great opportunity that is!”