On November 13, Techniquest hosted an event celebrating the culmination of the Next Gen Earth project, a national youth-led programme run by the Association for Science Discovery Centres (ASDC).
As part of the project, excited children and young people from the Welsh Youth Parliament, ACE Cardiff and Home Education Wales learned all about how climate change affects our planet through extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods.
Eve Powell, the WYP representative for Girlguiding Cymru, explained that their project — which included surveying more than 200 young people on the importance of stopping climate change — offered some fresh insight on the issue.
She said: “The Next Gen Earth project provided young people like ourselves with the vital opportunity to look at our issues from a new and unique perspective.”
Following outstanding presentations from all three groups, the guests — many of whom were relatives of the children who took part — heard an insightful talk from key note speaker Nicola Pulman from Size of Wales, a charity that works with Indigenous and local people worldwide to grow trees and protect at least 2 million hectares of tropical forests — an area the size of Wales.
And after the ceremony ended, the STEM-enthused children and families in attendance had free rein to explore over 100 interactive exhibits on the floor and interact with some of the eco-conscious exhibitors in attendance, including the Wild Space Project, Univeristy of South Wales and Project Seagrass.
Sarah Cunningham from the Wild Space Project said: “It’s important that young people learn about the impact of climate change in the right way so they’re more connected with the environment and they grow the want to protect it.
“We like to talk about animal anatomy because it’s a fun way to get more in tune with the natural world — finding out how many bones an animal has or what their diet consists of, for example.”
Aisha, aged 7, took part in the project through ACE Cardiff, a learning club based in Butetown. She said that her favourite part of the evening was “talking on the big stage” and that she “couldn’t wait to play on the [exhibits]”.
We would like to thank ASDC and all the wonderful companies that took part in the Next Gen Earth project and devoted their time to the celebration event at our science discovery centre. Those in attendance were:
Bute Energy
Cardiff University
Dŵr Cymru / Welsh Water
Green GEN Cymru
Seagrass Project
Size of Wales
University of South Wales
Wild Science Project