An educational project exploring the synergy between art and science to improve understanding and awareness of climate change

Abstract

El clima en la cuerda floja: imaginando extremos futuros (Climate on a tightrope: imagining extreme futures) is a research and educational intervention project funded by the Spanish Foundation of Science and Technology (FECYT). The starting hypothesis is that the complementary use of art, science and technology is capable of improving the understanding and assimilation of phenomena related to climate change, as well as promoting the action and involvement of the school public and their environment. Their synergy is proposed as a tool to improve understanding of such a complex reality as the one we are currently experiencing, generate new awareness and modify behaviours. Consistently, the project’s research team includes a group of scientists specialized in climate physics and a group of artists with extensive experience in outreach in their fields. Cooperation between fields of knowledge is essential to address such a vast and multi-faceted problem as climate change. On the one hand, the potential of the arts to create fictions that enable us to grasp aspects that would otherwise be impossible to imagine; on the other, the need for a well-founded and objective understanding, as made possible by scientific research; and finally, the capacity of technological tools to expand the dissemination possibilities, and provide immersive support for visualising the fictions created. The core activity of the project consists of a series of workshops carried out in schools from March through May 2024, using methodologies that are at the crossroads of the arts and science. In these workshops, after having based climate change on scientific rigour, participants will be invited to imagine the impact that climate change is having in different parts of the world and create an artistic installation that will be photographed using 360° technology. These images will be subsequently used to create an interactive virtual map that will bring together the scientific and artistic processes at the educational centres. All in all, the activities seek to involve students and the broader school’s environment in the knowledge of the greatest challenge we face, both in its scientific aspect and in its socio-environmental aspect, providing them with tools to critically interpret the large amount of information that they receive continuously through the media and social networks.