This sustainability action, unprecedented on this scale in Portuguese universities, is part of the week to welcome new undergraduate students.
ISEG, in collaboration with IPP (Institute of Public Policy) and Transitar, organized a major event to raise awareness about climate change, with the participation of around 200 first-year students from ISEG's undergraduate programs. This action involved training our teachers, staff and second and third year students as Climate Mural facilitators.
The new students were invited to take part in the Climate Mural, an initiative to raise awareness of the causes, consequences and side-effects of climate change, based on the work of the UN's IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A set of letters leads to the creation of a mural through cause-effect connections between each letter, deepening or uncovering new knowledge, focused on climate awareness.
An initiative that attests to ISEG's commitment to educating, raising awareness and encouraging students to change their behavior and practices, as Winnie Picoto, ISEG's Vice President for Sustainability, says: "At ISEG, we recognize that the quality of life of future generations depends on how we deal with current challenges and we are very committed to the challenges of sustainability. By participating in this action, our students gain a greater awareness of their role in society and propose individual and collective actions for the climate transition.”
The Climate Mural workshop was created in France in 2018 and has already raised awareness of climate challenges among more than 1.1 million people around the world. Through this collaborative workshop, ISEG students were able to discover, sometimes with surprise, how major current issues are interlinked with climate change. For example, the extent to which rising temperatures and the resulting migration of insects could be responsible for the spread of disease.
With the start of the academic year at ISEG very much focused on Sustainability, the following day the students also had the opportunity to move from theory to practice and take part in an environmental volunteer action with the Monsanto Interpretation Center, in partnership with the Lisbon City Council, to collect invasive species in the Monsanto Forest Park.
