Introducing KATS
Kids Action Thru Science (KATS) is an innovative climate change education outreach project created by the Water Security & Sustainable Development Hub and developed and delivered by Newcastle University.
The KATS project encourages young people to learn about climate change issues, enabling them to acquire the skills to become climate activists and global citizens, helping accelerate action to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Grounded in creative, hands-on activities, and enquiry-based learning about climate change, KATS employs citizen science techniques to enable young people to collect, analyse and report on their own data, to understand how climate change is affecting their local areas (and what is happening globally), inspiring them to become ‘climate superheroes’ and help solve the world’s most pressing challenges.
The KATS team have successfully delivered this project out to local schools within the north east of England with students aged 8-12, that explore the Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on Climate Action (SDG 13), Life Below Water (SDG 14), and Life on Land (SDG 15). These projects have focussed on climate change themes such as, water pollution, air pollution, fast fashion, global citizenship, renewable energy, and local biodiversities. Some activities include, using Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to explore life below water, using mobile sensors to collect data about air quality and weather patterns, creating climate superheroes and climate stories, testing water quality and becoming news reporters on the ‘KATS Global Network’. Recently, the KATS project has expanded out to Barbados (SIDS) and India, where we have explored how climate change is impacting young people’s environment.
KATS Around the World
Our intention is to expand and roll out the KATS project internationally to countries that are most affected by the impacts of climate change, such as Small Island Developing States (SIDS). By delivering KATS worldwide, we aim to capture young people’s knowledge of climate change issues within their own environment and allow them to pass on the ‘torch of knowledge‘ to children around the world, mobilising a global network of climate superheroes.
We continue to work with the Water Security Hub to develop and deliver the project in Colombia, Ethiopia, India and Malaysia, making KATS even more internationally focussed.
