Project term: August 2008 - March 2009

The aim of a project is to develop, implement and promote series of educational and practical tools for carbon management and public awareness on climate change at St Petersburg educational institutions and households.

Outputs:
1. Training of trainers package (to be available online);
2. Improved carbon accounting toolbox (to be printed and made available online)
3. Manual on carbon dioxide emissions reduction and offset for various areas of activity at educational institutions (to be burned on CD and made available online)
4. Collection of energy saving/carbon reduction classroom activities, games and holiday events scenarios for two age categories (to be printed and made available online)
5. Pilot “quick-win” carbon reduction measures are introduced in an educational institution.

Three workshops for municipal educational institutions at Petrogradsky and Primorsky districts and for wider audience at a city level.

Main Activities:

· Based on the outputs of the previously funded Low Carbon Diet project, to develop the training of trainers package to be used at the workshop at Primorsky district to trigger climate change educational activities at primary schools and pre-school educational institutions.

· To improve the carbon calculator developed within the Low Carbon Diet project so that it would become Internet-friendly; to add calculation methods description and to advertise the calculator via Russian-speaking online social networks; to produce a carbon calculation leaflet (1000 copies).

· To produce a manual on carbon-efficient practices for educational institutions (CD, 100 copies).

· To implement some of the carbon-efficient practices at a pilot educational institution.

· Together with school teachers of Primorsky district, to develop series of classroom activities on energy saving and climate change for elementary school pupils and pre-school children.

· Using energy-saving school network developed by NGO Friends of the Baltics, to invite other Russian and NIS schools to contribute to the collection of energy saving/carbon reduction classroom activities.

· To select 10-15 best classroom activities and to distribute the collection to other schools and kindergartens of St Petersburg (book, 200 copies).

· To disseminate the work at a workshop for other municipal educational institutions organized at a city level
To support a feedback mechanism via mailing list.

Background :

In November 2007-April 2008 CTC SPb has conducted the UK consulate-funded project “Setting up a Low Carbon Diet for Municipal Educational Institution” aimed at reduction of carbon dioxide emissions at two municipal educational institutions and neighbouring households.

Within the project timeframe, energy audits of 2 educational institutions were conducted; carbon calculator was developed; information leaflets have been published, scenarios of energy saving/carbon reduction classroom activity and a game were elaborated, three workshops for municipal educational institutions at Petrogradsky, Vyborgsky and Primorsky districts were conducted.

All the project outputs have been made available at CTC SPb website for further dissemination.

The success of the first project and positive feedback we received at the three project workshops and thereafter give us ground to develop further actions that would be suitable for further promotion of the carbon-neutral living concept and for addressing the main relevant concerns of school educators we identified.

The idea of involving kids into climate change mitigation activities proved to be a successful concept. There were numerous reports from parents that kids actually forced them to save energy or at least to pay attention to the issue. These measures were mainly temporal while they were doing their energy-saving home task, but some parents reported they would offer savings on energy bills as pocket money for their kids to keep them busy with the climate change mitigation activities.

From the educators’ side, one of the main concerns was the lack of proper learning materials to communicate climate change issues to younger pupils and pre-school children. They indicated that global concepts are usually hard for kids to comprehend. Creative thinking and efforts of wider community of educators is needed to develop learning materials in climate change that would be applicable for pre-school and primary school education.

Longer Term Impact:
With the tools to communicate climate change issues to kids, to account greenhouse gas emissions from a single household and a set of low-cost carbon emission reduction measures being suggested, low-carbon lifestyle and business practices will be promoted thus leading to a faster transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy.

Project is financed by The British Consulate-General, Saint-Petersburg.