Learning Journey 1 - LEVERS Masterclass Series
Video 1 - Learning as a Driver of Climate Action
This video introduces how climate education can help people respond to complex environmental and social challenges, moving beyond teaching facts toward learning that supports action and shared responsibility. Featuring Mairead Hurley of Trinity College Dublin, it introduces the LEVERS Learning Framework to show how learning across schools, communities, and workplaces can help people engage with real-world issues and take meaningful action.
Video 2 - Why Action Shapes Climate Learning
This video explores the psychology and neuroscience of climate learning, revealing why awareness and concern alone rarely lead to action. Drawing on behavioral research by Jonathan Mille and Kris De Meyer at University College London, it shows how action builds agency, reshapes beliefs, and helps close the gap between caring about climate change and knowing how to act.
Video 3 - Attending to Wider Climate Learning Ecosystems
Video 3 in the LEVERS for Climate Masterclass Series explores climate learning ecosystems, showing how learning is shaped by relationships, organizations, and communities beyond the classroom. Featuring insights from Jonathan Mille and Kris De Meyer at University College London and Mairead Hurley at Trinity College Dublin, it highlights how making these influences visible can strengthen connections, support learner agency, and enable meaningful climate action.
Video 4 - Designing for Climate Learning
Video 4 concludes the LEVERS for Climate Masterclass Series and explores how to design climate learning, offering practical principles for connecting action, reflection, and collaboration across real contexts. Mairead Hurley of Trinity College Dublin draws on the LEVERS Learning Framework to show how small design choices can support learner agency, transdisciplinary learning, and action oriented climate education over time.
Learning Resources - LEVERS Instruction Plans
Over the course of the LEVERS project, different Learning Ventures developed hands-on, action-first learning activities. A selection of these learning activities have been captured in instruction plans which can be used by educators to run their own LEVERS-inspired learning activities. Some of these are for bespoke audiences, but others are for general learners in youth or adult education contexts – in formal and informal settings. They are available as PDF downloads from the links below.
- Brunch with Nature – Working with nature through sustainable making and green entrepreneurship
- Eau là là – Measuring water use through sensors and data literacy
- Sustainable fisheries – Working with small-scale fishers and members of coastal communities
- […more coming]
Learning Journey 2 - Supporting Adult Education
The three videos form a coherent learning journey designed to support adult education settings in fostering meaningful climate and nature action.
- Session 1 explores how change happens, and why it often gets stuck, introducing key psychological insights such as polarisation dynamics, the limits of fear-based approaches, and the principle that actions drive beliefs.
- Session 2 builds on this foundation by focusing on how to develop collective agency and connect effectively with others, highlighting the importance of engaging people’s intuitive thinking (“talking to the Elephant”) and managing differences in meaning and interpretation.
- Session 3 translates these insights into practical systems thinking tools, guiding participants to map stakeholders, analyse connections, and design targeted interventions using structured methods such as systems mapping and the Individual–Social–Material (ISM) model.
Together, the three sessions move from understanding the psychology of change, to building collective engagement and agency, to designing systemic change programmes.
LEVERS 2.0 – How change happens
Session 1 explains why climate action in adult education settings often gets stuck despite high awareness and concern. It introduces three core insights: first, strong opinions can escalate into polarisation (“the pyramid”), especially when issues feel urgent; second, fear alone rarely drives sustained action and can instead produce hopelessness or resistance; and third, action typically precedes belief.
People develop stronger pro-climate attitudes after acting, not before. The central message is that meaningful engagement comes from creating structured opportunities for action and building agency, rather than relying on information, persuasion, or emotional appeals.
LEVERS 2.0 – Developing whole-school approaches
Session 2 builds on the idea that actions drive beliefs by focusing on how to develop collective agency and bring others along in climate action. It introduces different forms of agency (individual, proxy, and collective) and explains that meaningful engagement requires connecting with people’s intuitive “Elephant” (automatic, experience-based thinking) rather than only addressing rational reasoning.
The session highlights that words and concepts (like “climate action”) carry different meanings for different people (“Ginger the Dog”), which can create misunderstanding unless surfaced and managed. The core message is that building whole-school approaches requires talking to the Elephant, managing differences in meaning, avoiding polarisation, and linking climate action to what genuinely matters to people.
LEVERS 2.0 – Systems thinking tools
Session 3 translates the psychological insights from Sessions 1 and 2 into practical systems thinking tools for developing whole-school climate engagement programmes. It introduces two complementary roles for supporting change — the “midwife” (supporting people through new situations) and the “mechanic” (providing technical expertise) — and emphasises the importance of taking a systems view rather than simply delivering activities or solutions.
Participants learn to map stakeholders, identify connections, clarify the change they seek, and reflect on leverage points through a step-by-step systems mapping process. The session concludes by introducing tools such as hypothesis testing and the Individual–Social–Material (ISM) model to analyse barriers and design targeted interventions, reinforcing that effective climate action requires understanding and intervening in the wider system, not just individuals
Material (videos and slides) are available here. Participants need to create free accounts to access it.