Prison talks: bringing climate change conversations into the Irish prisons

The project ‘Prison talks: bringing climate change conversations into the Irish prisons’ has been awarded an EGU Public Engagement Grant. This public engagement project brings talks on climate change, extreme weather events, and their impacts to inmates (people in prison) in Irish prisons, through the lens of science communication and outreach.

This project is raising awareness of climate change and its impacts among people in prison, a hard-to-reach audience with limited access to science communication and outreach activities. People in prison have an educational disadvantage, as many didn’t finish secondary school. This climate change outreach project plays a transformative role by providing values, knowledge, and skills to help individuals reach their full potential, motivate positive citizenship, develop social responsibility and personal transformation, increase well-being, and foster a sense of community and belonging, enabling them to live more successfully upon release.

People in prison completed anonymous surveys (quantitative and qualitative questions) before and after attending the climate change talks to assess their perceptions of climate change and science communication and to evaluate the project's effectiveness.

This presentation will outline the research methods, lesson plans, project’s findings and recommendations. The project ‘Prison talks: bringing climate change conversation into the Irish prisons’ highlights awareness of the importance of science communication and public engagement events among populations in prisons, which can be replicated in other countries.