The Scarabaeus in Ancient Egypt was a symbol of rebirth. Today he is unknown and strange for us – like a migrant. Project Scarabaeus and the Four Elements is aimed at adolescents in the last two years of their primary school, aged 14-15 years – it is intended to make young people more aware of the fact that there are also other values asides from the desire for wealth and power. The Community is a value that we will need in the future. We need unity, an open awareness. Open to others. A universum. The symbol of this universum in our project is the Scarabaeus beetle presented in the symbolic colours of the four elements. It will be our guide in the contemporary world and the guardian of knowledge necessary to last within it. We are going to organise a total of 10 meetings with 14- and 15-year-old youth. This will be a series of topics that end with an event for everyone. During the meetings, we are going to pass on the key facts and figures demonstrating the relationship between global inequalities and the migration of contemporary people. At the end of the workshops, all the participants will symbolically immerse their hands in some clay and make clay hearts. The we will create an artistic event in Warsaw and by this fact join the Earth Day 2020 Network.
About workshops in the project:
educational boards:
What we done:
We organized over 10 meetings with young people aged 14-15, in a larger number of facilities. In total, there were 254 registered We used active methods of education: first, there were slideshows presented by an expert. Then the participants received educational boards, in A4 format, presenting the issues graphically, which had been prepared earlier by us. Two groups of problems, which can lead directly to climate migration, were identified:
- Exploitation of natural and mineral resources that are the source of such phenomena as exploitation of people, resource curse, extraction of conflict minerals, violence, and environmental devastation.
- The factors resulting from visible climate change include primarily water stress and drought, as well as recurrent rapid phenomena such as floods, cyclones, hurricanes and megafires.
After the knowledge had been passed, participants worked creatively in smaller groups. They made mind maps or worked on seed ideas. This part emphasized the importance of sustainable development as an identity necessary for starting behavioral changes. The first idea was to look for opposing behaviors or pairs: environmentally friendly/unfriendly. This idea provided a basis for creating an educational game: black and green eco-transformations or eco-conflicts, i.e. what needs to be done to save the world. Each participant was to identify the most important challenges for each of the four elements separately.
Educational game Black-green: Eco-changes or eco-conflicts?
Another idea realized based on discussions with the participants is the game: Climate wheel of fortune – here each participant has an opportunity to compare moral choices resulting in a change of social attitude.
Climate wheel of fortune the game:
An artistic performance, Earth Day, took place on April 22. Due to Covid-19, audience participation was impossible. The artists worked with extraordinary security measures. The report was broadcast live via Facebook
