Dŵr Uisce Climate Action Hackathon – A cool connection

Climate literacy and awareness have greatly deepened over the past few years but how strongly they shape our values and therefore inform our decisions is still a weak link. Inaction today will result in an even heavier burden on today’s youth. How does it feel to be 15 years old in 2021?

As a team of researchers involved in a water-energy nexus project, we felt a compelling responsibility to work with young people to build their knowledge, awareness and skills to tackle climate change through water efficiency. We therefore decided to reach out to young people aged 15-17 to explore the climate action potential of saving water resources in a way that is meaningful and relevant to their circumstances. Looking beyond lecture-style activities but rather focusing on a dialogue that could support their efforts to tackle the climate crisis, we considered the following questions: How can we make our research agenda informative and relevant to young people? What kind of engagement activity can foster youth-centred learning, skills development and innovation processes to take climate action within the water-energy nexus?

A recent global trend of organising hackathons to find solutions to societal issues offered the perfect answer to our needs. In our submission we describe how the rationale behind the choice of a hackathon-style event was informed by pedagogy, social science and management theory. We illustrate the details of the 2-day Climate Action Hackathon we planned, organised and facilitated to a group of 15-17 years old students, members of Irish NGO ECO-UNESCO. Then, we present the outcomes of the hackathon and how we assessed the impacts. To conclude, we describe how the lessons learnt have been incorporated into three further future engagement projects at larger scale in Ireland, Wales and at European Union level.