Welcome, everyone to 100 Climate Conversations. Thank you for joining us. My name is Pat Abboud. I’d like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the ancestral homelands upon which we meet today: the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We respect their Elders, past, present and future and recognise their continuous connection to Country. Today’s number 93 of 100 conversations happening every Friday. The series presents 100 visionary Australians that are taking positive action to respond to the most critical issue of our time: climate change. We are recording live today in the Boiler House of the Powerhouse museum. Before it was home to the museum, it was the Ultimo Power Station. Built in 1899, it supplied coal-powered electricity to Sydney’s tram system into the 1960s. In the context of this architectural artefact, we shift our focus forward to the innovations of the net zero revolution. Tom Linnell is a high school teacher and sustainability consultant working at Tenison Woods College in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Linnell, who has been employed as the college’s Sustainability Coordinator since 2013, has worked closely with students from years 7 to 12 to facilitate a range of sustainability and climate initiatives. Linnell was awarded the South Australian Premier’s 2020 Climate Leader Award for his work at Tenison Woods and was a 2022 Churchill Fellow. Welcome, Tom.

Thanks Pat. Thanks for having me.

So, your appreciation for the natural environment started at an early age. Can you tell us a bit about life growing up on Boandik Country in South Australia on the Limestone Coast, which is stunning.

Yeah. So, Mount Gambier is where I can sort of call home now, but it’s not exactly where I called home for my upbringing. I grew up in an even smaller little community called Tantanoola. For me, I was fortunate to live within that community, but I actually lived about 10 kilometres away from that tiny little town. So, for me, my upbringing I think probably differs from the 85% of young people that now live in an urbanised environment. I’m sure there are a myriad of more people that live in more remote communities than that. But for me, I think it paints a picture or at least shapes maybe some of my experience growing up, having to make do with what’s around you.

Also, obviously, from a very early age, you were surrounded by the natural environment – probably much more than many other kids your age.

Yeah, I think that’s a real thing that gets missed or overlooked in regional communities – is that you’ve got so much more space. So, for a young person to learn and meander through these spaces, collecting tadpoles, finding bird’s nests, chasing insects. I remember – I’ve got an older brother and sister and a younger sister – we’d try to fix up old push bikes and see how far we could ride. And we’d make lassos out of baling twine and chase around cattle. And I think it is vastly different to what an upbringing today looks like.

You’ve mentioned previously that climate change and sustainability weren’t really on the agenda when you were at school, where you grew up. What motivated you to start working in this space?

In my upbringing, through a school context, my favourite subject I think was geography, and I have no recollection of connecting the dots between sustainability, climate change with any of the content that we studied. I remember moving through university as well, and it was right at the time where the Australian Curriculum, which is a framework nationally that educators teach through, and there was this sort of discussion about sustainability: Where does that fit into this conversation? And interestingly, it has a home and sort of it’s nestled in there. It’s called a cross-curriculum priority.

So, if it wasn’t there as you sort of went through school and started your own senior education, what was the sort of moment where you thought: This is something I need to – well, I want to focus on and build a career from.

Probably two points. And my role at Tenison College – again, I’d been in that community for 10 years and I enjoyed a wellbeing coordinator role. You know, I would work with young people who were often disengaged with education or in a proactive way. I’d find ways to connect kids with their learning, but in a reactive way. I was often – this child was sent out of class, misbehaved in this particular way. And I found that through using the school grounds as a way to have conversation, open dialogue with a young person that had a feeling in their emotions, I realised I could unpack a whole lot more than I could sitting in a closed room. So, for me, in some ways I could see the natural world as an opportunity to have real conversations and build relationships that I couldn’t necessarily do in different settings. So, to flip that, in 2015, as a Catholic school, the Pope released an encyclical, which is a really interesting and pivotal document that sort of –popes don’t release that many documents like that with an encyclical. In a Catholic school, often it’s the job to sort of listen to what some of these documents are talking to. And in 2015, he produced a document called Laudato si’, which translates to ‘Care for Common Home’. And Laudato si’ sort of said: All Catholics, all people within our global community have a responsibility, and their responsibility is to care for their home. And it sort of went another step, too, which I really – it warmed to me as well. It said: Those that are the most affected by changing climate and the environment that we are as humans changing and reshaping – those who suffer the most cause the least amount of impact. And I thought: Whoa, you know. So, suddenly the conversation about in schools, talking about social justice, it flipped on its head because it said: You can’t talk about social justice if you can’t talk about climate dialogue.

So, you said that was back in 2015 when you started at the school?

When we dreamt up this idea of a Sustainability Coordinator. In fact, at the start it was two roles, and we sort of said there’s a high school element, and there’s a primary school element. And then we realised there’s actually just one element. There was a community here.

I suppose the point I’m wanting to draw there is that it’s taken quite a while to get to where we are now – for you to be out talking about the work that you do, the unique role of Sustainability Coordinator in the school – if it was sort of born in 2015.

That’s right. But interestingly, for some people, I think it’s still not even born. You know, I’m blessed with this role of sustainability and ecology coordinator. I think there would be five to 10 other people in Australia in a school with that title.

So, it is a really unique role. But what does it actually involve? Like what are the nuts and bolts? Because I think it’s a big word, ‘sustainability’.

It is, yeah.

There are many facets. But first let’s just talk about what you do day-to-day in that role as Sustainability Coordinator.

So, I would say there’s a curriculum element. I work with students, with staff to develop curriculum packages that young people can explore these themes of sustainability through. There’s sort of a macro level, which is the college itself. So, curriculum college. I’d like to use the example of a college as a living laboratory for sustainability. So, how can I not just learn through a teacher, but how can I learn through the buildings? How can I learn through the design? Ask Tenison Woods College [about] the incredible growth it’s undertaking? So, we’re saying: How can it grow in a way that represents our values in this space? And then the other lovely C I put into that is ‘community’. So, it’s about – I see the school as a – this idea of a lighthouse within our local community. How can we be a beacon for change? So, we connect in part with local businesses and organisations and industries. So, how can young people, how can a school, how can we change values and a mindset, or how can we enable a paradigm shift about reimagining a sustainable future that our young people want to thrive and celebrate in?

So, you mentioned partnerships there and sort of building relationships with community. You’ve developed some pretty interesting industry partnerships in this space. Could you tell us about some school-wide projects you’re working on, particularly in the renewable space.

I guess part of that, early 2015, we sort of said: We need to set some audacious and ambitious goals. And one of those goals that speaks to your question is – I still don’t know how we managed to get a board to sign off on this goal, but we said: What if we were a school that had no reliance on the grid? We’ll still be connected to the grid, but what if we could produce as much power as we used and we could do that through connecting young people with that process.

Just within the school grounds?

Yeah. What would that look like? How could it be done? You know, and it’s so interesting when you pose that question to kids. They come up with a myriad of different ways that it could be done without the necessary technical background behind it.

The imagination.

Yeah. One example was the kids said: Well, let’s create a sports court where you can move around and the energy from moving balls and feet on the sports grounds created an energy, you know. And we said: I’m sure that exists somewhere. Let’s find it – we haven’t gone to that extent. But we took a few of the low-hanging fruit, and we developed a program in partnerships with some of these great organisations. And with some of the skill sets that we had at the school at the time, we developed an electro technology course where young people were connecting with this growing space of renewable energy, getting some skill sets in that space and providing the solar panels and installing the solar panels, designing the solar scope that our buildings could harness energy from the sun, and they would be a part of that entire process. So, we have 270, 280 solar panels on the school site. And I’m really proud to say that every one of those had a student’s hand on it during the installation. So, that goal of being a net zero or a contributor school of power by 2030, that would be a pretty audacious goal. And I think it’s almost like we’re building the car as we’re trying to drive it. But what a way to keep the momentum going and keep young people connected with that journey.

Speaking of net zero, you’re not only sort of instilling the need for sustainability in these great projects and initiatives that you’re partnering on with organisations outside of the school to make possible – instilling this stuff in the students is hard. Obviously, you’ve found very creative ways to do that, but you’re also trying to make the school itself and its operations as sustainable and climate resilient as possible. It’s not just about educating students. It’s actually physically the building itself, right?

The thing is walking the talk, isn’t it? How can a young person say authentically: I’ve engaged in this theme of sustainability when you’re in a bricks-and-mortar building that is exactly the same of old system approach that got us into the situation we’re in right now. So, I think you can’t authentically engage in those conversations unless you can demonstrate physically that you were able to be a part of a solution.

Proof is in the pudding. On that your goal is to make Tenison Woods College zero waste by 2025. How along with the students are you tackling this?

So, I guess it starts at a very micro level. We say: Well, what waste does the school produce? So, to do that we say: Well, what ends up in the rubbish bin? And then a good question asked as you’re doing that is: What comes into the school? So, schools are big consumers of materials. You know, I think a lot of organisations would be surprised to see how much a school consumes and then also disposes of.

They are also large creators of waste.

Yeah. And a very traditional linear model – we can talk about a circular economy – but a very traditional model. So, it’s tricky with the school. You’re looking at the resource usage, but you’re also looking at the processes and skill sets that enable those materials to then do something else post-usage. So, we set some goals too in regards to waste and we said: By 2055, no waste. We don’t want a landfill bin in the school. Biggest thing that we found by way in surveys of waste, and it’s interesting: I’ve had as many kids turn their nose up at a bin order as as many kids run to help out. So, it’s really interesting when you tip all the rubbish out, who runs this way and who runs from this way. But food waste. So, to start with by volume and by weight, the biggest waste object we have is organic material. And we manage to liaise with the local councils and say: Hey, how can we get rid of this food waste? But we found a once-a-fortnight collection of what is about 50 kilos of waste every day on the school site. We’re a school of 1400 students, 300 staff, so a big school. We produce a lot of food waste: you know, apple cores, banana peels, half-eaten sandwiches, everything you can think of. So, we said: Well, okay, we’ve got a lot of food waste – about 50 kilos every day, which equates to ten tonnes a year. So, we said: How can we deal with that volume of waste? And we researched. We looked at different ways. An organic composter. So, we’ve got a big – it looks like a giant breadmaker, and every day 50 kilos of waste gets collected in streamed bins from around the school. And isn’t just collected – that’s all done by students. We’ve got one staff member in our sustainability team that oversees part of that job, but it’s all done by students that have additional needs. And these kids take that job as a responsibility. They grab it with two hands, and they do it so well. So, they collect this food waste around the school which the rest of the students do a pretty good job of streaming. Goes into the composter. Click one button. The start of the next day that food waste comes out as a soil fertiliser, and the next batch goes in. And that process happens five days a week. There’s your ten tonnes of food waste disappeared.

That’s phenomenal.

Food waste gone. But then add to that plastic waste. So, plastic waste is a gigantic problem. And our biggest challenge when we talk about this zero-waste school is plastic. You know, in our society there’s a culture of convenience. There’s no escaping plastic. So, we said: One of our other things, by weight, was plastic. We said: How can we do something with plastic. And South Australia is really great – we’ve had 10-cent container deposits for a long time. But we said: What about the stuff you can’t recycle? You know, the lids, the bread tags, the other small stuff that just ends up destined for landfill. And we looked and we looked, and a couple of kids and I in a bit of a project – we found this crazy set of blueprints to turn all of your hard plastics into material that can be reused, reformed and then used around the school.

So, on that are you doing that on the school grounds or are you having to send it away somewhere?

No, it stays all on the school grounds. So, part of the breakdown of our trust in the system was when REDcycle fell over. REDcycle deals with your soft scrunchy plastics, and that was a key for us to get to zero waste. But when we realised it was just going to stockpile, we said: We need to solve these problems. We need to see those problems solved where we can see them. Because if we’re sending them away with our fingers crossed to hope that they get fixed, we have to just trust on that. And we’ve seen that system not work well. So, yeah, the school with some supportive local organisations and some really clever dads, we put together these machines and they’ve been running 24 hours a day, chomping away plastic lids. The kids do a great job of colour-sorting. We’ve got some really great experts and community groups that support us to collect, sort, stream these plastic wastes. And I think we’re probably four or five tonnes a year of plastic waste that was 100% destined for landfill – can’t be recycled.

It’s really impressive what you’re describing because essentially, basically, you found a way to approach the waste problem. But at the same time, you’re building these great engineers who are designing the machinery and the things, the sort of processes, in order to make – bring the waste levels down.

Well, I think also another element which I’ve loved in this crazy, crazy journey is that we’ve created conversations that could not have happened unless we had these physical things to do. Does that make sense?

Yeah, you’ve got to put your hands into it in order to sort of connect with the problem.

So, to see young people rocking out before school starts and want to be a part of these programs, or finding that space as their little home at lunchtime – for me, it’s really affirming that we’ve got the right stuff within that school. And, again, the school is really special in what we do, but nothing we have is proprietary. My greatest dream would be that every school picked out one little thimble of what we’re doing and say: We can do a bit of this at our school.

Well, it’s empowering, isn’t it?

In the middle years, the school really, I think, leads the way in different ways across the country, integrating different subject areas. So, I think if we are learning simply in disciplines or in silos, it’s really hard to break down those silos later on. So, interdisciplinary learning, you’re creating integrated learning programs where kids can learn about history and geography. And, you know, as a Catholic school, there’s an element of religion. And if they can be interwoven into a subject where students can take a big juicy bite out of the apple that is sustainability, it’s much more of an enriching experience than saying: Oh, yes this is this a sustainable development goal. You know, we’re ticking that box today and we’re going to move on to something else next week. So, it’s hard. It’s hard in the sense about a very full curriculum. You know, everyone’s work in any role in any profession is tricky, you know. But educators, I think, more and more are pressed to find the time that they can meaningfully teach and engage in young people. So, I think sort of the intersection for that element of, ‘how do you intentionally teach these themes of sustainability and climate change to young people?’ is to find integrated models, to find the language point where a young person can access the information to change the narrative from a doom-and-gloom perspective, to try to find ways to integrate but not solely rely on technology. A young person is, I think, in our society today – technology is such a click your fingers and you can waste 10 minutes if you want to. So, young people are drawn to technology, so I’d love to – I’m excited to explore further through some recent studies this idea of how could using a theme like solar plants – visuals that intersect nature and technology – how could that be a stimulus for a young person to build and play a part in developing a hope-filled future for themselves?

It sounds like a lot of what you do is very focused on the practical, right? And you’re feeding the theory into the curriculum. But how do you teach the need for sort of wider industrial reform, as well as the individual responsibility for each student?

I think it’s so confronting as a young person when someone, you know, whether it’s a politician or community leader or someone in the media will say: It’s up to young people to be a part of these solutions. But I see very rarely a young person’s invitation to the table for the conversation. And if we talk about this conversation about climate change, the people that will be the most affected for the longest to come are the youngest people in our community. And yet they’re disenfranchised and disempowered to connect on that level, to engage in these conversations. So, I would really like to see governments sort of step up to the plate and say: You know, there is a space for dialogue for young people. We want to hear young people not only as part of the problem-identifiers, but the solution-makers.

Are there particular methods to engage people that you would kind of recommend when it comes to sustainability? And how does that differ from educating us adults?

It does, definitely. I think the attention span of a young person – these days, I think the difference with the attention span of an adult is very similar to a young person. But I also think, again, changing dialogue in schools and advocating for the voice of young people. Again, it’s a complete paradigm shift for education, of the past to say: I’m an educator. I’m in control. I have the keys. We’re going where I say we’re going to go. You know, I think education is ready for significant reform to say: Well, how do we engage and connect young people for a future where they’re excited by, or a future where they’ll thrive, where they can see their own visions of the future come to life, as opposed to the visions of the future where we see governments around the world flip-flopping on climate objective?

Do you think if we were to treat more adults as kids in this context and give them these sort of practical approaches, where you’re putting your hands into the solution yourself, part of creating a solution physically, it would engage adults in the climate conversation in a more sort of active way?

Completely. We’ve seen parents come to the forefront within our community to lobby for a more sustainable and just society through the enthusiasm of their children. You know, through the projects their children have found ownership [of] and say – when parents can see their kids are connecting with that, there’s a connection for them too.

How do you instil a sense of care for the environment and climate change without sort of overburdening students, or like overstating the role of the individual? Because that’s really hard for us adults.

I think we’re so close to – as a society, I would argue we’ve desensitised ourselves to the climate challenge. And I think for a young person, they see this challenge or the future that we’re talking about – that’s their future. So, creating ownership and not creating responsibility, I think that’s really tricky, because in a sense, by putting this responsibility on a young person through saying: You know, you’ve got to be a part of the solution; it’s your future. They need to have a voice at the table to be a part of the future –

But aren’t you in a sense doing that? Aren’t you giving them that responsibility by arming them or equipping them?

I want to see it jump one level further, and I want to see their voice heard at a high level, not my voice. The best thing that I – and I love this about my job – is when I can hold a megaphone up for a child and they can voice their concerns. And it connects with these challenges, these big challenges we’re talking about.

Do you have some of the young people at school come to you ever and say: ‘This is just too much. You know, I can’t cope with this.’?

Climate anxiety, it’s a real thing, you know. And you see it mostly in schools, and when everything is all too hard –

So, how do you deal with that? How do you approach those conversations?

We’ve got incredible counsellors that we work with within the school. But that’s something that they are saying to me, within the circles that we have, is young people are worried about their future. It is an unknown, unstable future. We’re entering into a bushfire season. We’ve seen significant floods around the country. In the rural areas we’ve got droughts. So, that’s more than just the impacts from a physical perspective. That’s a family’s economic impact. So, these are real concerns.

You touched on this earlier. You mentioned that you’ve had these sort of amazing dads that help build machinery, and there are people in the community organisations that you’ve partnered with. Let’s go into a little bit more depth on that, in terms of the role guardians and communities play in bolstering these incredible efforts of young people, and the way that you’re equipping them to respond so directly to climate change. What role do those guardians and communities play in that?

I think, and I’m sort of celebrating the regional and rural communities here, because I see –

People just get involved.

I see – it’s like a web and maybe it’s like a sticky web because the more you wiggle around in that web, the more you’re pulled into it. And it’s great. The dad who coaches the local footy team who supports this, works with the engineering company, who’s [a] friend with the local mechanic. And through those sort of organic relationships that in a regional community they are everywhere. You know, there is no disconnect. You know, you don’t just know your neighbour, you know seven streets away – and that’s different. And I think from a young person’s perspective, that’s a connected element of who they are. It forms a sense of their identity. So, yeah, I think through those connections and through those relationships, we’ve got young people who – if one of my goals is to say: Oh, let’s zoom out. And let’s say: Who else is your neighbour? Does your neighbour live overseas? Does your neighbour live on the other side of the world? You’re a part of a global community. You’re a global citizen. Well, how do your actions represent a responsibility within a global citizenship?

So, it’s making them very well aware that there are these sort of role models in their own community that are bolstering their efforts. But at the same time, there will come a time where it’s not just them in that community. It’s them in the –

Broader context –

Big wide world.

And I guess that’s interesting for us too, is we see young people entering – where the growth of the jobs is, is not these low-skilled, they’re not these mundane day-to-day jobs. The growth in the jobs are those that are, you know, critical thinkers and those that are aware of interconnectedness and those who are good at building relationships and those who are problem-solvers. These are the skills that we want our young people to enter into the workforce because that’s where the jobs are – that environmental awareness. The World Economic Forum says that of the top five skill sets that a young person should leave school with, a sustainable mindset is one of those five. And for me, that’s music to my ears because that’s what we’re preaching. Like that’s – and if that’s where the jobs are, well how come there are not more voices like mine, you know, screaming from the top of the mountain to say: What does this look like in schools? What is the role of schools in a changing climate? What is the role of schools in building and developing not just better consumers or more efficient workers, but more responsible citizens on a globally aware level. It’s the first time in human history where, you know, not only can I pick up the phone and call anywhere in the world, but I know the situation is significantly changing. You know, the Stockholm resilience in the talks about the planetary boundaries, and we are out of whack. And I think it’s the first time, again, in history that young people have that document in an accessible two-minute clip that they can watch and say: Okay, this is not business as usual. Things are going to change.

This is real. Yeah. Do you have any sort of surprising insights from the kids that you’ve work with? I’ve been dying to ask you this since I started reading about your work, because I wonder what sort of questions they come to you with.

I love creating obscure excursions. So, for the year threes in our school, each year they go to the local landfill. And you might think: Why would you go there? But it’s to show, as a young person, that everything that goes in that red bin is destined to a big hole in the ground. And it’s interesting too, because it’s not actually that easy to take 150 7-year-olds to a rubbish dump. You know, these days there’s a fence around it. There’s a sign-in booth, you know.

I think they’d much rather be going to a theme park.

You say that but, you know, it’s a great place for provocation because you could – I love setting up a little impromptu mic and Q and A to say: What did you see there? What could it be used for? I think young people are great at poking the stick in an uncomfortable spot. A great question one particular group of enviros asked a few years ago is: Where does our power come from and does it come from clean energy? And I was like: I’d love to know that. Knock, knock, knock: Business Manager, do you mind if I have all the printouts from our energy for the last five years? It wasn’t an easy thing to get, but we got it. And then to realise that as a school network, 100-plus schools within Catholic education in South Australia, that power is tendered. So, it’s really: pick the cheapest power and go for it. So, in one of my projects recently to say: Well, couldn’t we make a better decision than just a financial decision? What aligns with the values that we’ve been encouraged to consider – whether it’s our superannuation investments, whether it’s power consumption, utility providers? What chemicals do we use when we spray for weeds around the grounds? I think, again, you don’t get to the point you get to in this crazy rabbit warren of a journey that we’ve been on unless you listen to the questions your kids ask. Because we are conditioned as adults not to ask those questions. We don’t even think about them.

How can other schools and colleges promote sustainability practices within their own operations? Because it’s not like people don’t want to do it.

That’s right.

It’s how do we make it as accessible as possible and as simple as possible, because there’s already so much else going on.

I think in my last count, there’s 300,000 educators in Australia and there’s four million students. And I think that’s an incredible number of people that can push from the bottom up. So, I would love to see, you know, a group, a team, a consensus that said: We want change. We want to be a part of something different. And we want to be a part of what the next generation of a learning environment looks like.

You mean other educators, other schools?

Other schools, other educators, young people. I’ve got a small group, and I’ve just seen this example in action when I was in Denmark recently. You won’t Google search it now, but I reckon if you give it a month’s time – ‘the right climate to learn’ and ‘the right climate to teach’: Google those two phrases. It’s a coalition, a growing coalition of schools and educators that are on a journey.

In Australia?

It’s an emerging group. But, yeah, in Australia. I’ve seen a great example of a high school alliance in Denmark and a significant body. A really large percentage of schools across Denmark are a part of this group, and they’ve been able to instigate change at a policy level, at a government level about significant issues that young people and education employees see as a problem. But also, I’ll chuck it in as a little tidbit. The government spends $65 billion on fossil fuel subsidies annually. Billion. Sixty-five. And $26 billion annually on primary and secondary education. So that’s a challenge, isn’t it? There’s a doubling of budgetary constraints for fossil fuel subsidies. And we see in the moment, media is talking really actively about new power, coal plants and mines. And I just think there’s a potential for a momentous shift when it comes from government to talk about, you know – I could stand here and say: I really want to see more words about climate change in the Australian curriculum. But again, it’s piecemeal. When we talk about –

They’re just words if there’s no action behind them.

That’s it. But I see a really big disconnect and an injustice to the young people that are in my community and communities around the four million students we talk about that are enrolled in school. That’s an injustice on their future, and taxpayers contribute to that. So, I think there’s a right for crying out from the streets to say: Let’s do it differently.

What advice do you have for educators who want to empower young people to take active roles in advocating for climate change and sustainability in their communities?

I think it starts with: listen to young people. They have real opinions, they have real concerns, and they have a real voice that at the moment is not heard very well. So, use that voice to shape your learning in your classroom. I think that’s a great place to start. The next step, I think, would be to say: You don’t have to know all the things you need to know about sustainability to engage in this conversation in your classroom. For some teachers, it’s an uncomfortable space not being the more knowledgeable other in a room. But how great would it be for a young person to be the more knowledgeable other person in the room interacting and engaging with a broader community about these significant issues? I think education these days, you’re more of a facilitator of education. You want to equip young people to drive these passion projects. And you look within the wellbeing surveys about young people: this is a concern. You know, this is the concern.

Climate change is a concern.

Yeah, that’s right. More and more we see that in the data that young people are saying: Not only am I concerned about this, I am voiceless. I can’t vote. I can write a letter to a politician. I’m a child. One significant one I really want to encourage for educators, but also schools more broadly, is: look for professional development opportunities. Again, you don’t need to know everything about sustainability. But I just finished a program at the University of Tasmania called a Diploma in Sustainable Living. Free. Didn’t cost me a cent. Did it part time for four years. I’m finishing my last assignment this afternoon. Done. I’m not an expert on sustainability, but I’ve been able to add a significant different level of knowledge than I did when I took on the role of Sustainability Coordinator. You know, and it’s interesting. This job, this role, I would say, has shaped more of my life outside of my work than inside of my work, if that makes sense.

That’s amazing.

I’ve jumped on a train and the train’s racing by, you know. But I’m not maybe seeing change as fast within broader society as I’d like. I don’t have a crystal ball. But if I did, I think it would say the future looks a lot more active than it does today.

On that, again, are there any policy recommendations or initiatives that you believe could improve climate change education on a much bigger scale?

I think a big one is funding. If the knowledge doesn’t exist, or the passion or the awareness doesn’t exist in schools for this conversation, and there’s no funding for expertise outside of school, how does this conversation take place? So, it’s either: equip your educators to build resilience capacity capabilities in this space. Or it’s: encourage and support funding for external providers to add these little glimmers of hope into your curriculum. You know, there are local organisations, local councils – these people have the skill sets, but they can’t necessarily get into schools. And I think a school was a great open place to break down the boundaries because the doors are open. So, if you’re someone at home and you’re not an educator but you’re a parent or a concerned citizen, what skill sets do you have that you can bring to that school? Whether it’s supporting a garden club, whether it’s seeing a beehive come to life, whether it’s tinkering in the workshop, find a way to connect with your school because schools are overwhelmed, overworked. Teachers are exhausted, but we need to see change.

My son is three; another one on the way. I hope both of them have a Tom in their school. It’s incredible work that you’re doing. Please join me thanking Tom for being with us today. Thank you so much. To follow the program online you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And visit the 100 Climate Conversations exhibition or join us for a live recording, go to 100climateconversations.com.

This is a significant new project for the museum and the records of these conversations will form a new climate change archive preserved for future generations in the Powerhouse collection of over 500,000 objects that tell the stories of our time. It is particularly important to First Nations peoples to preserve conversations like this, building on the oral histories and traditions of passing down our knowledges, sciences and innovations which we know allowed our Countries to thrive for tens of thousands of years.