Seniors Talking Climate to Children: A Shift in Perspective

We often imagine children as the ones who push adults to act on climate change. What if we turned the picture around? In Come Together, we tested this idea: involving seniors to pass on climate knowledge to the younger generation.

The activity, designed and led by Planète Sciences, brought together a group of seniors from the Brel-Brassens Social Center in Évry-Courcouronnes (France). Over a session, they built a complete weather station—anemometer, wind vane, rain gauge. It was hands-on, educational, and designed to spark intergenerational exchange.

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A hands-on start

From the very beginning, seniors pictured how they would use the weather station at home and share it with their grandchildren. Each built an instrument adapted to their own environment—balcony, garden, or window ledge. Concentration and engagement stayed high throughout.

Fun fact: when they first came, many thought the workshop was about gardening. Some even brought their own tools, expecting to start a vegetable patch. The surprise? They loved building scientific instruments—and especially the idea of teaching this skill to their grandchildren. But it raised an open question: would they have come if the activity had been announced as “scientific construction” from the start?

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From tools to climate discussions

As they built and tested the devices, participants discussed the difference between weather and climate, and the changes they had witnessed over decades. Their lived memory became a powerful entry point to connect personal stories with scientific knowledge.

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Extending the dialogue

The activity was designed to be reproduced at home, turning the workshop into a tool for family dialogue. Seniors left not only with instruments but also with stories to share—making them credible and trusted messengers for climate issues.

Later, the group came back to continue the exchange, this time around biodiversity, seasonal consumption, and a mini-vegetable garden. The potager gave a concrete way to explore how everyday choices link to environmental change.

 

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Why it worked

• Practical engagement: building something tangible creates attention and motivation.
• Credible messengers: seniors bring long-term experience and authentic stories.
• Intergenerational impact: knowledge is passed on with emotions and memories, not just facts.

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What we observed

• Consistent focus and investment from participants.
• A strong desire to reproduce the activity with younger generations.
• Collective pride in creating something useful, visible, and easy to share.
• Reinforcement of the idea that climate mediation works best when grounded in everyday life.

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Takeaways for practice

• Offer simple, manual activities that can be repeated at home.
• Provide a clear protocol so participants feel confident passing it on.
• Encourage intergenerational conversations.
• Always connect practice with clear, relevant messages on climate.

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In conclusion

This workshop showed how seniors can be powerful actors of climate mediation. By making them builders and storytellers, we opened a new way to spark dialogue with children—rooted in experience, practical skills, and the joy of sharing.

It was also the last activity in the formal phase of Come Together. Now begins the next step: analyzing and formalizing everything learned since the launch of the mediation actions, to draw lessons for the future.

Shifting Postures: Listening and Exchanging Differently with a Researcher

Can a creative workshop open the way to authentic exchanges between the public and a researcher? In Come Together, we tested this idea at the Library of the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris.

The workshop was part of Les Ateliers de Céline, a program led by Céline, a facilitator known for her creative sessions built around upcycling. In these workshops, participants design and transform everyday objects into something new.

For Come Together, one of these creative meetings welcomed Sybille Jumeaux, a researcher specializing in sustainable food. Around the table, young people from the Feu Vert program of APSV—a scheme supporting social and professional integration—were invited to customize papier-mâché fish while talking about food, habits, and visions for the future.

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A creative trigger

The manual activity gave participants freedom to speak—or simply to focus on their creation—without pressure. Each person joined the conversation at their own pace, making the exchange more open and less intimidating.

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An informal dialogue with a researcher

Instead of a formal presentation, the discussion was driven by the young participants’ questions and comments. The researcher reacted directly, providing clear answers, building on their ideas, and validating their perspectives.

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A complementary duo

The workshop succeeded thanks to the combination of skills. Céline, the creative mediator, guided the manual activity. The researcher brought scientific expertise. Together, they created an environment where participants felt engaged, valued, and free to express themselves.

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Why it worked

• Hands-on activity lowers barriers: creating something with your hands frees the mind, reduces pressure, and sparks conversation.
• Direct contact with a researcher: many participants rarely meet experts. This encounter gave credibility, recognition, and a sense of being taken seriously.
• An informal setting fosters authenticity: spontaneous exchanges led to honest reflections, rather than rehearsed answers.

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What we observed

This format triggered curiosity, genuine dialogue, and new ideas—not only among the participants but also for the mediator. It opened possibilities for “off-site” sessions in everyday places: canteens, neighborhood centers, or even exploring biodiversity in local parks. The creative activity became a doorway to relevant, place-based discussions on sustainability.

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Key takeaways

• Choose an activity suited to the public’s age and interests.
• Let the expert respond to participants’ input rather than deliver a lecture.
• Use creative practice as a tool for expression, not just as a distraction.

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In conclusion

Shifting posture means creating a space where people build, exchange, and learn differently. This Come Together workshop showed how a creative gesture, combined with a researcher’s attentive listening, can spark meaningful conversations on sustainable food.

It was a one-off action held at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie—but one full of lessons. We hope this format will be adapted and reproduced in future sessions with diverse publics.

When Prison Inmates Design Their Own Mediation Tools - France, May 2025

We often imagine that people in detention are distant from scientific or climate issues. The experience carried out with TRACES, as part of Come Together, proved the opposite.

Over six sessions, a group of inmates in France not only explored scientific content about climate, but also designed tools to share their knowledge with others.

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Step by step – building up together

An open starting point
This time, nothing was defined in advance. No imposed topics, no pre-designed formats. Everything grew out of discussions with the group and with the researcher they met. Step by step, participants chose both the themes and the way they wanted to present them.

A remarkable encounter
The group also welcomed Aglaé Jezequel, a climate researcher specializing in extreme weather events. The exchange was particularly lively, full of questions, comments, and personal reflections. For the inmates, this direct dialogue with a scientist was experienced as a rare and valuable moment.

The final choice
From these conversations emerged the idea of creating mini-exhibitions. Each piece featured a flap: on the outside, a question they themselves had raised; on the inside, an answer built from the documents they had read and summarized.

Reading, understanding, synthesizing… at full speed!
What struck us? Their appetite for reading and learning. Articles, studies, documentation: rarely have we seen a group so eager to dive into texts. What was planned for three hours was done in half that time, leaving room for discussions on source reliability, multiple viewpoints, and critical thinking.

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Why It worked

• The absence of a pre-set framework gave the project a true sense of ownership.
• Their speed and rigor in analyzing documentation showed an exceptional motivation.
• The flap-format exhibitions turned their own questions into powerful learning devices.
• The exchange with an expert was experienced as a rare and valuable opportunity.

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What We observed

Beyond the tangible outcome, the strongest result was a shared sense of pride.
Pride in reading, understanding, debating. Pride in producing mediation objects that could inform others.

Inmates showed a rigor and speed in handling scientific resources.

 

Key Takeaways

• Start without a fixed format: let participants choose the themes and outputs.
• Trust in motivation: even in unexpected contexts, curiosity can drive impressive results.
• Build mediation tools around their questions, not predefined answers.
• Ensure experts engage in dialogue, not lectures.

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In Conclusion

This series of sessions showed how, by starting from people’s interests, it is possible to build together meaningful mediation tools — even in detention settings. The project highlighted both the potential and the limits of such actions: rich, constructive, but still temporary within a broader context.

Feedback on the National Training – France, February 2025

On February 12 and 13, 2025, we held the French national training course in Universcience for the Come Together project… and what a moment it was!

28 participants joined – more than expected, and a group that was highly motivated, curious, and committed.
Over two days, we shared, explored, tested, and reflected together on how to make science communication more inclusive, especially when it comes to environmental issues.

What we (re)used

This national training built on the foundation of the international training that took place earlier in the project.

We revisited the core takeaways developed during that phase, including:

• The importance of active listening
• Hands-on, interactive approaches
• Learning through real-life examples where everyone brings their expertise
• The power of engagement and storytelling
• The need to adapt each tool to the specific audience
• And above all: science mediation as a space for dialogue, not top-down transmission

What we adapted

Before the session, the Universcience team took time to carefully analyse feedback from the international training.

Goal: Make the national version even more accessible, practical, and inspiring — especially for a group with less prior experience in mediation.

Here’s what we changed:

• More time for participants to share their projects, ideas, and questions
• Experts who used varied formats – no long lectures, but lively exchanges, demos, and storytelling
• Participants tested dialogue methods before analysing them – because we learn best by doing

We also challenged some of the usual frameworks. For example: We moved from asking “Who’s responsible?” to “How can we build a sustainable future together?”

         

Tailored activities

We designed specific activities to meet the needs and interests of the group:

• A fishbowl discussion on how to encourage people to take action
• A focused session on what inclusion really means, with clear, grounded definitions
• A peer exchange of ready-to-use tools, methods, and mindsets
• A collective exercise using real documents to learn how to make science resources accessible to all

To help participants reflect and transfer what they learned to their own context, we created a personal reflection notebook, filled in throughout the training.
A simple but powerful way to ask: What do I take away from this? What can I apply in my own work?

 

What’s next?

Participants are now heading home with a clear mission: to implement inclusive science mediation actions on environmental issues, in their own communities and contexts.

In their words:

“This makes me want to take action. And now I feel legit doing it.”

“Discovering different projects, ideas, and difficulties was inspiring and reassuring.”

“We’re leaving with tools… but also a whole new way of thinking about our relationship with the public.”

 

Thank you

A huge thank-you to everyone who joined us, for your energy, your ideas, your questions, and your engagement.

And a special thank-you to those who supported the project from the beginning – your insights helped shape this training and made it what it was.

See you very soon for the next steps!

Feedback on the Online Training by the Come Together Project: Supporting Science Communication on Climate Issues for Socially Excluded Adults

On October 15 and 22, the Come Together European project team organized a first online training session: two days dedicated to give to professionals the keys and tools to design science communication activities on climate issues, specifically targeting socially excluded adults.

A Diversity of Profiles and Perspectives

Twenty-five participants from the five partners’ countries (France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and Italy) joined the training. They represented three main professional backgrounds: science communicators, researchers, and social workers. This diversity was a key strength of the training, fostering rich exchanges and constructive discussions through the confrontation of different perspectives.

The challenge was significant: delivering an online training in English (a non-native language for most participants), to a group of people who had never met and came from varying professional contexts.

Some take-away messages that participants would share about the training

A Well-Balanced Structure to Encourage Exchange and Learning

To meet this challenge, the Come Together team designed a balanced format combining theory, practice, and self-reflection:

• Informal sessions to encourage participants to connect and build relationships.
• Small group activities to ensure everyone had the opportunity to speak, share experiences, and discuss projects.
• Plenary sessions to deliver theoretical input and set the stage for deeper discussions.
• Individual moments for participants to reflect and process their learning, accompanied by a collaborative playlist created specifically for these self-reflection times (available ici).

Collaborative playlist for self-reflexion time during the training

Topics Covered

Over the two days, the training addressed central themes at the intersection of climate issues and social inclusion:

• Inclusion: role-playing exercises and expert interventions helped participants better understand the specific needs of socially excluded audiences.
• Climate issues: how to encourage audience to take in action ? How to manage emotions related to climate change ?
• Bridging the two: each session was designed to show how to incorporate climate issues into inclusive approaches.

To visualize the training process, check out our 2-days program below.

Why Was This First Training a Success?

The feedback from participants speaks volumes:

• Practical tools were explored, and some participants have already begun using them in their own projects.
• Participants gained confidence and legitimacy to design and facilitate communication activities on environmental issues for socially excluded audiences.
• Training materials (documents, slides, collaborative murals) were rated as highly useful for learning.
• 100% of participants agreed that this training increased their motivation to lead inclusive educational actions on climate and environmental topics.

A Co-Created Training with Hub members

This training was developed through the collaborative efforts of the Come Together hubs across the five partner countries, who shared their needs and expertise over the past six months. A heartfelt thank you to them for their contributions!

What’s Next?

The feedback gathered during this first edition will help enrich the next step of the project: the organization of a national training session in each country. Stay tuned for this opportunity to further advance inclusive science communication on climate issues!

 

Co-creation workshop in Milano

The project partners gathered in Milan for a three-day co-creation workshop (July 16-18) hosted by the project's lead partner, the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology. We were joined by three hub members coming from Austria, Germany and France. The meeting was centered on designing the initial version of the international training program for scientists, NGO workers and educators who will conduct educational activities with and for the project's target groups.

Project team at the beginning of the meeting. 

Catherine Oualian, the trainer at Universcience,
facilitates the meeting.

Catherine Oualian and Fannie Le Floch, two excellent facilitators from our French partner, the science center Universcience, carefully prepared and conducted the co-creation workshop, which included lectures, discussions, and varied activities. We heard from three outstanding speakers who provided insight into the intertwining of two project topics: climate change and the engagement of various vulnerable social groups in these debates. 

Sociologist Clémence Perronnet introduced the concept of inclusion and emphasized that there are numerous factors that contribute to social group discrimination, such as race, gender, age, religion, class, and disability, that must be taken into account when planning educational activities.

Lorenzo De Vidovich, also a sociologist, addressed the question of social justice in energy use, focusing on the relationship between the social and environmental crises, as well as how energy transition initiatives may affect marginalized socioeconomic groups and geographical peripheries. 

Sandi Horvat, journalist, writer and representative of the Roma Academic Club from Slovenia, provided a very comprehensive overview of crucial factors to take into account when working with and for underprivileged communities.

We also learned about the Green Ethics project, which is being run by the University of Turin's Social and Community Theatre Center and the university itself. First, Alberto Pagliarino provided us with the theoretical framework of their work, and then we attempted some of the community theater's approaches ourselves, guided by Maurizio Bertolini.

Community Theatre Center's workshop with Maurizio Bertolini.

We also served as an audience for activities created and implemented in our respective organizations which benefited us in developing the international training program. Sarah Klemisch from the Ethnological Museum Berlin introduced us to the Speculative Design through imagining the future of our city and its resources. Balduin Landl and Constantin Holmer from the ScienceCenter-Network have tested the discussion game, as well as conducted a series of experiments to teach us about CO2. Fabrizio Stavola of the National Museum of Science and Technology "Leonardo da Vinci" encouraged us to consider the complexities of the climate crisis by investigating the mechanisms of toy operation. Katarina Nahtigal and Tina Palaić from the Slovene Ethographic Museum presented the museum program of personal exhibitions created by various individuals and social groups, with a focus on collaboration with Roma communities in Slovenia.

         

Learning how the toy mechanisms work.

                          

CO2 experiments.

The majority of the meeting was spent planning the international training program, which we devised based on our professional knowledge and experience, as well as the skills, needs, wishes, and interests of the national hub members. We defined the critical themes we want to explore in the training, determined the pedagogical objective of the selected training sequences, and suggested a teaching techniques to achieve the goal. 

Working on the selected training sequences.

The two-day international training will be aimed at scientists, NGO workers, and educators who will be conducting educational activities with and for the project's target groups. It will be done online on October 15th and 22nd.

Dear hub members, thank you once again for your dedication and efforts. We look forward to continuing this journey together and making a meaningful impact.

First hub meeting in Vienna took place!

The first hub meeting organized by the ScienceCenter-Netzwerk in Vienna, Austria, took place on 10th of April 2024 in the Wissens°raum, our very own ScienceCenter in the 5th district of Vienna:

For our first hub meeting, we tried to bring together people with various backgrounds and collaboratively work on our understanding of socially inclusive cliamte education for adults. The main focus of the first hub meeting was to get to know each other, explore relevant topics and develop a common understanding of how we want to work together. Therefore, everyone introduced themselves with an object from the Wissens°raum that they found interesting and that they felt some connection to. Because we did not only want to call our hub meetings "hub meetings" we decided to give this exciting process a name, some colour, and a logo):

The Klima-Wissens°werkstatt is a process, workplace and hub at the same time. Therefore, we hope to be able to serve as a platform for socially inclusive climate education for adults for various interested people and institutions that want to work together with us. For this purpose, we noted down our thoughts and ideas on a paper roll on the floor where important topics, a timeline with possible specific foci, and other relevant information were written down. To complement the analog format of the paper roll, after the hub meeting, we translated our ideas and findings into a digital version, a mural which is open to all participants and interested people. In the next weeks, we will have further meetings to deepen our knowledge, experiment with different formats and work on ways of doing socially inclusive climate education for adults.

Come together for socially inclusive climate education for adults.

We are very much looking forward to this exciting process!

We meet every week Wednesday 3:30-6:30pm in the Wissens°raum.

First hub meeting in Milan!

                  

On Monday, April 15th, the first hub meeting took place in Milan, in the Sala Biancamano of the National Museum of Science and Technology!

45 people, from various backgrounds (education, research, inclusion, policy making, art) participated in the meeting and started to share their experiences and thoughs on the topics of climate change, adult education and inclusion.

The participants were involved in brainstorming, tinkering activities, and discussions about the goals to reach in inclusive science education, led by expert facilitators. 

The exchange was very enriching, both for Museum staff and for the participants. 

As Museum professionals we were impressed by the great interest toward the topics and the variety of actors. With a collaborative approach, we aim at putting together all the people interested in working for the same objective: a more inclusive climate change education for all.

We are very looking forward to the next meeting!

First hub meeting in Paris

The first hub meeting organized by Universcience is in full preparation! We can't wait for professionals from education, social work and research to cross-fertilise their questions and expertise.

The first discussion will take place in May, followed by a visit to the Urgence Climatique exhibition at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie.

 

Coming soon: first hub meeting in Milan!

The first hub meeting organized by the National Museum of Science and Technology “Leonardo da Vinci” is coming up! 

The meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 15th, 2024, from 4.30pm to 6.30pm. The hub will welcome all those people who are interested in social inclusion, climate change education and in the development of dialogue activities between researchers and vulnerable populations. 

Hub participants will meet for the first time at MUST, get to know each other better and start to share their experiences, knowledge and ideas on the topics of climate change education and social inclusion. 

Date: April 15th, 2024

Time: 4.30pm -6.30pm

Address: Via Olona 6 bis, Milan.

Announcement: Project partners' first face-to-face meeting

After multiple online meetings, the project partners will finally get together in person!

We can't wait to talk about our experiences and, most importantly, about the planned activities for the project. The agenda includes a discussion of: the purpose, methodology, and results of hub meetings; the organization of trainings for scientists, researchers, museum staff, and other stakeholders to create educational programs about climate change. 

The meeting is scheduled for April 22nd and 23rd at the Berlin Ethnographic Museum.