The Climate Education Kick-Off programme at the Institut Mines Télécom: from an individual initiative to a huge roll-out
In three years, the Institut Mines Telecom (IMT), which includes eight French engineering and management schools as well as two affiliate schools, has gone from organising just a few workshops, to organising them on a large-scale format: more than 8,000 students have participated in a workshop in three years!
Since 2020, the CEKO programme (Climate Education Kick-Off) has raised awareness of climate change among more than 8,000 students across the 14 IMT campuses. Always paired with solution-oriented workshops (civil engineering projects, debates, construction of new narratives and new models,...), Climate Fresk has been a crucial element in the large-scale transformation of engineering and management school training that now concerns the majority of classes.
It all began in 2019 thanks to a teacher’s initiative
As early as September 2019, during Climate Fresk’s first year of operation, IMT Business School and IMT Atlantique offered a few Climate Fresk workshops to their students. These schools were not only pioneers in their teaching of environmental transition, but were also Climate Fresk trail blazers, paving the way for other IMT schools to discover the tool.
In 2020, the IMT gets on board!
A student movement, “Civic Transition Training”, the TforC (“Transitions Formations Citoyennes”), encouraged IMT to get involved and offer curricula and courses in ecological transition.
IMT made the decision in June 2020 and 3 months later, it rolled out the Climate Fresk workshop to its 2,500 first-year students. At that time, of course, France was coming out of its first lock-down. During this difficult period, IMT wanted to offer an engaging yet educational activity to its students. With this in mind, IMT’s management decided to provide the financial means and signed up to the CEKO program with the NGO: they needed many facilitators, coordinators, and training in facilitation, as well as internal coordinators and people committed within IMT.
The group’s institutions were concerned about being perceived as too politicized if engaging with ecological transition issues. However, the Climate Fresk tool addressed this concern: while asserting its neutral political position and educational ambition, it focused on the scientific facts and not on the (possibly controversial) solutions.
To ensure a smooth and successful roll-out, the CEKO program was staggered from September to December across the different campuses. The workshops were held online, which made them accessible during the COVID period and lightened the load when it came to logistics. A special shout-out to IMT Mines Alès, which managed to hold the workshops in-person between two lock-downs!
200 members of teaching staff, researchers and management staff became Fresk facilitators for the occasion!
In 2021, the roll-out of Climate Fresk within IMT ramped up and became autonomous
IMT was progressively structuring its teaching programs around the challenges and issues of environmental transition: dedicated curricula and common courses providing concrete skills,… It also offered other awareness-raising workshops, on issues such as biodiversity for instance.
With regards to Climate Fresk, the teaching committees of three schools recognized it as a way for students to validate some introductory course units. Therefore, the workshop became mandatory for their students! In addition to this, the board of directors of IMT and of some of its schools were also fresked!
Thanks to the experience gained, Climate Fresk deployment was becoming more autonomous, and relied less on external assistance from the NGO. Internal coordinators of each school could count on teams of committed people. To foster this dynamic, IMT valued student commitment: all first-year students who had attended a Fresk workshop in 2020 were able to become facilitators in 2021. As a consequence, 60 new freskers joined the IMT in-house facilitating team.
At IMT in Alès, the staff even voted for the most beautiful Fresk and displayed it in its premises!
For me, raising students' awareness regarding the challenges of the ecological transition is a necessity in our engineering training. That is why, after discovering the Climate Fresk when I arrived at IMT, I turned to facilitation in order to raise awareness, in my own way, among new students.
In 2022, the three classes of IMT will all be fresked!
By the end of the year, more than 9,000 students will have been reached over the past three years: all year groups will have participated in a workshop, i.e. the vast majority of students. More than 300 members of the teaching staff, researchers, directors and students are now facilitators. This means that 2,500 students from the 8 different campuses will create a Climate Fresk during this last term, including 500 students engaged in work/study training programs.
The workshop is now credited as an introductory course to ecological transition at IMT Nord Europe, IMT Mines Albi – Carmaux, IMT Mines Alès, Mines Saint Etienne, IMT Atlantique and Télécom SudParis. Climate Fresk is therefore the first block of the transition curriculum.
Can IMT still be more ambitious for 2023?
The next development objective for the IMT’s Fresk program is to expand internationally next year, through its Bachelor’s degree in Senegal hosted by IMT Dakar and its Franco-Senegalese campus.
A huge congratulations to IMT, its teachers, researchers, management staff, internal Freskers and committed students … and to the initiator of the movement, who has made all this possible!
This all started as an individual initiative. Your actions are seeds that can flourish into a meadow.