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Training for individuals

Earth Talk is a course, a community of practice and a book that offers a rich set of tools to hold effective conversations and creative activities about the Earth Crisis.

Individuals from all backgrounds are invited to join the Earth Talk community on Hylo to access the following benefits:

• A network of like-minded others to share your practice and challenges, and find collaborators
• A book in ten parts: see part one here which outlines all the contents
• Seven annual online workshops for training and discussion, and additional networking events
• At least 128 activities and delivery resources — including diagrams, posters, card sets and question sets, workshop plans, mini-essays and slide decks.

Read on here, to see the options, the FAQs and the joining form.

After doing Earth Talk training, you are invited to join Climate Museum UK as a member.

Training for professional groups

We aim to support cultural and civic workers to engage communities with the Earth crisis. We offer talks and workshops for teams or workers who might be in:

• Arts & Culture organisations or networks
• Environmental NGOs or voluntary groups
• Schools and universities, including research teams
• Businesses dealing with sustainability or social change.

Contact us for our fees and more detail on climatemuseumuk@gmail.com

“That was fabulous! You are indeed doing what you say…talking about the problem and engaging with both public and peers. I am inspired.”
Alison Smith, following training workshop at MuseumNext, London, June 2019

These are some suggested themes, but we can shape something to suit your needs:

1. Grasping the situation: what is the Earth crisis?

• What is the Earth crisis? How are its causes and impacts connected to well-being and justice? How do we feel about it? What terms can we use to think about it? How might we talk about extreme weather, or ‘climate emotions’, or think about the future?
• We can facilitate a stand-alone workshop (c.90-120 minutes) for your organisation, or can slot a shorter session into a bigger event. 

2. Eco Lens on Things

This most suits museums and heritage organisations. Exploring ways to collect and interpret cultural and natural artefacts and sites in this time of Earth crisis, seeing through lenses of climate and ecology. This session invites participants to bring examples of their collection to explore the following through creative exercises:

• How can all things be interpreted with an eco-lens, by putting a relevant slant on your collections that involves people and makes connections?
• How can people be engaged with interpretation that develops eco-capacities in people?
• How can you have positive impacts on your human & biodiverse communities – in your bioregions and the planet as a whole?

3. Culture takes action

• Icebreaker e.g. a time travel activity to imagine your organisation in two possible futures. 
• The context of the Earth crisis, its causes, impacts and tactics for action.  
• Identify the strengths and priorities of your organisation, and identifying a pathway to take action.
• This training is in partnership with Culture Declares Emergency, for whom we developed the Culture Takes Action toolkit.  

Other offers

Print It Yourself display

We can supply high-resolution files for a display of interactive posters and printable sheets of activities. The main posters are designed by young people, and they can be seen here. (Please note, we are in process of redesigning this.)

Cost £440, to include a briefing and selection of additional printable activities 

Mentorship

We can provide ongoing support and mentorship, which might be for an emerging practitioner new in a role tackling a project on climate and ecology themes, or it might be for a manager dealing with challenges. This might involve helping you recruit an Emerging Associate who becomes part of the CMUK community while being located locally to you, and able to work on your project as funding allows. 

Cost £250 a month for e.g. 4 x one-to-one conversations (includes 10% CMUK admin costs).  

Bespoke creation of resources, experiences and activities

We can respond to your commissions, drawing on our team and wider network of artists, exhibition designers, educators and science communicators. We can produce, for example, artworks for display or for your collection, adapted found objects for handling sessions, written texts, digital projects, or learning resources. If you want a local artist/educator to work in a direct or participatory way, we can help brief and mentor them, so that they become part of the CMUK community. 

Cost: dependent on your budget and needs, and 10% CMUK admin costs.

We offer unique training, valuable because of the complex nature of the Emergency, and the way it challenges everything we take for granted. Please get in touch at climatemuseumuk@gmail.com to discuss your needs, your budget and what we can offer.

“Our enormous thanks for your inspiring, motivating and energising presentation last night. It truly felt like a timely ‘call to arms’. The discussion that followed and potential future activity catalysed by your presentation feels very rich and urgent, so a big thank you again…Placing love and emotion at the heart of climate activism feels like the only truly sustainable way forward.” Sara Dudman, Somerset Art Works

“Many thanks for your excellent workshop on Friday – you really managed to get everyone talking and thinking about what might be achievable and I hope that we’ll have a good starting point from which things may be taken forward.”  Yvette Shepherd, Museum Development Officer for Organisational Health, after a workshop on ‘What can museums & archives do about climate change?’, November 2019

“The most impressive content from Theme days that ended yesterday was Bridget McKenzie’s keynote speech.”; “It got me thinking about sustainable development in my own work, how we could improve this in everyday work in community section”; “Your performance was the most believable and relatable of them all.” Some comments about a keynote at Museum Theme Days in Helsinki, 2019