Dundee Science Centre (DSC) is a lifelong learning resource committed to engaging and empowering our community with science whilst developing their skills. We will deliver a brand-new community engagement programme shining a light on climate change, through play and hands-on learning, to inspire action.  

Discover: We are experiencing a climate emergency. Our planet’s temperature is rising, biodiversity is decreasing and the change in our climate is having a devastating effect on life across the globe. Across Tayside, we have experienced record-breaking heatwaves and extreme flooding - putting our health and homes at risk. It’s important that we come together as a community to support each other and to protect our planet, now and for the future. Participants will discover how this has happened and the impact it will have on life on Earth through engaging demonstrations and hands-on learning.  

Explore: Dundee is at the forefront of climate action and adaption. Guided by the Sustainable Development Goals, we will explore ways in which our city and the surrounding areas can take action to build resilience to climate change and continue to grow in a climate positive way. 

Play: We will bring fun, engaging workshops and play-based activities into community centres and hubs across Dundee, alongside our community partners which include Dundee Bairns, Dundee Stroke and Exercise Group and Abertay Enviromental Science team including Dr Rebecca Wade. Our mission is to facilitate positive experiences with science, empower our community and to encourage them to connect with the natural world, embracing and protecting it for the future. 

Whilst the majority of the project delivery will take the form of in-person workshops throughout the community, we will also upskill community leaders and educators to ensure our work has a lasting legacy and provide resources for community centres to continue building their skills for years to come. Our programme development team utilise research informed learning practises and work closely with the Association of Science and Discovery Centres and the National Environment Reseach Council to bring the latest scientific developments to our audiences in exciting and meaningful ways. 

DSC will participate in community festivals, offering engaging and interactive experiences connected to our Climate Champions initiative. We will also host visits to our centre, where the public can explore sustainability through our award-winning exhibitions, guided by our expert science communicators. 

The environmental benefits of the project will include: 

Awareness Raising: Our team will provide a wide range of examples to establish a deep understanding of the global to local impacts of climate change.  

Community Engagement: We will work closely with a wide range of audiences to develop engaging and impactful workshops that allow them to take ownership over their own learning and apply their skills to help solve issues within their communities.  

Skills Development: Our team will raise the science capital and STEM skillset of participants as well as providing opportunities to improve critical thinking, literacy, numeracy and teamwork in informal settings. These transferrable skills will be beneficial in taking climate action but also in the personal and professional lives of the those involved.  

Climate Action & Adaption: The intended outcome of our work is to have our participants go out and take action in their local area that positively benefits the both the environment and their community.  

No action is too small or insignificant when it comes to creating a better world. Join us as we create Climate Champions across Tayside and play our part in driving meaningful climate action.    

One Parent Families Scotland aim to deliver Climate Action Workshops offering a variety of sessions designed to empower single parents and families in Dundee to reduce their environmental footprint and create a more sustainable future.

Discovering how small changes can make a big difference in daily life through our sustainable living sessions. Learning to save money and reduce waste with our food waste reduction workshops. Discovering tips to save energy and money on utility bills in our energy efficiency sessions. Enjoying fun and educational activities with your children in our family-friendly workshops. Connecting with other like-minded individuals and become a Climate Champion in our community engagement sessions.

By participating in our workshops, single parent families will:

• Gain valuable knowledge and skills.
• Save money on household expenses.
• Help protect the environment for future generations.
• Connect with your community and make a positive impact.

Kanzen is a registered charitys committed to not only building better lives but also to making a positive impact on the environment. With our new initiative to introduce an electric vehicle, we aim to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to a greener, more sustainable future. This will help us cut harmful emissions, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and set a strong example for other organisations in the community. It will also support us to remove barriers by providing accesible transport to those who need it. 

As well as reducing our carbon emmissions, an electric vehicle would also help us save money which we can then repurpose back into our charitable activities. 

Kanzen is an award winning charity and we are the current Dundee Social Enterprise of the Year, Dundee Sports Club of the Year and winners of The Courier Business Awards for Community Impact. 

We organised the first carbon neutral martial arts event in Europe and are proud to be an organisation rooted in the community. 

Abertay University Students' Association has been operating Abertaysty since 2019, and in the last academic year we provided 1705.6kgs of food to 1023 users (1.6kg per user on average) .  We currently only offer ambient food, as we do not have space for refrigeration.  However, we are moving to a custom designed space in December of this year and will then be able to widen our offering to students.  We work with Fareshare as our supplier, ensurng that we employ the principles of circular economy.  We would like to use monies from the fund to increase the amount we have available to widen our provision to chilled and frozen foods, to both help the students, and to collaborate on the prevention of food wste. Moving forward we would like to expand the larder to include a not-for-profit refill station, both to widen the offering, but also to encourage students to engage in more sustainble shopping practices.  To this end we would request funding to purchase the equipment needed, and the first purchase of goods to stock the station.

We also use Abertaysty to highlight other sustainable initiatives being promoted by the Association, the university and the wider community, and to provide access to information and guidance on how to live more sustainably.

This special initiative will empower young students to connect with the environment through hands-on, food-growing experiences. School children in Eastern Dundee will not only learn the science of planting, growing, and harvesting, but will also develop a deep appreciation for the environment and sustainable living. By running student-led farmers' markets, they’ll gain practical skills in agriculture and business, bringing fresh, healthy produce home to their families. This initiative will also improve school grounds, local greenspaces and biodiversity by buying and planting a diverse school orchard and sustainable vegetable gardens, with the input of the pupils themselves.

This project is more than just teaching children how to grow food—it’s about nurturing the next generation of environmental stewards. Many of these students come from low-income households, and some do not have gardens at home. The school becomes their only opportunity to engage with nature in a meaningful, skills-focused way. By instilling these abilities early, we help cultivate healthier lifestyles and promote self-reliance, all while creating a lasting impact on their communities. The seasonal alignment of Terms 4 and then Term 1 of tha academic years 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 ensures that students experience the full growing cycle, from seed to harvest, making this project a cornerstone for future school-led growing initiatives.

With the support of Dundee Climate Fund, this project will transform the way children view food and sustainability, making their school not just a place of learning but a thriving hub of community-driven resilience and environmental consciousness. These young learners will be equipped to tackle food insecurity and promote healthier futures for generations to come. Our instructors will even show them how to preapre and cook some of their produce on open-fires outdoors! Without this investment, the project simply cannot move forward. 

Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH) will deliver a year-long programme of environmental projects and activities at Growing Chrysalis, the community garden in the heart of Dawson Park. Our goal is to give individuals and families from across the region the chance to step outside and reconnect with nature.

Our programme will blend environmental awareness with therapeutic gardening to create a space where people can thrive alongside nature. Families will learn how climate change impacts our greenspaces and local wildlife, gain practical skills to help create a more sustainable future, and improve their wellbeing from being outdoors surrounded by nature.

All our activities will be dynamic and inclusive, tailored to meet the diverse needs of everyone who joins. These will include:

• Green Minds Sessions: Weekly garden-based activities focused on gardening, wildlife, and creativity. Each session ends with time to connect socially, building stronger bonds within the community.
• Local Produce Festivals: Celebrate Tayside’s rich agricultural heritage with events highlighting local produce—potatoes, soft fruits, and berries.
• Recycle Fun Days: Family-friendly events promoting sustainability through fun, hands-on activities using recycled materials.
• Grow Your Own Food Workshops: Practical sessions on sourcing and growing local, seasonal food—from foraging to creating your own food forest.
• Saving Local Wildlife: Learn about the impact of climate change on local wildlife and how to protect our precious wildlife with sessions on growing wildflowers for pollinators, building bat boxes, and creating wormery composts.
• Reducing Food Waste: Sustainable cooking sessions using homegrown produce, held in our outdoor kitchen to strengthen healthy eating and social connections.

How daunting and frustrating it must feel to be a young person now - as climate change gathers pace - more uncertain than previous generations about what the future holds. Furthermore, many feel failed by governments and older generations, and powerless to influence the direction of travel. Although schools are tasked with preparing children for the future and providing the skills and knowledge for the climate transition, teachers often feel similarly ill-equipped to fulfil this role.

So, how can this stalemate situation be overcome? Is there a way that young people can be given agency over their future careers and livelihoods? These are the questions that led researchers at The James Hutton Institute, in collaboration with teachers in secondary schools and career-advisors at Skills Development Scotland, to develop a novel multi-actor, multi-generational model to engage young people in the discussion and co-design of pathways for climate transition.

The Dundee Climate Fund 3.0 would allow us to develop and run a ‘COP’ style event bringing young people in Dundee together with potential future employers in the co-design of pathways for climate transition. The workshops will empower young people to work with scientists and industry experts to discuss collective actions, skills, careers and individual behavioural changes underpinning this transformation.

We propose a one-day event involving between 5 and 10 students (S5/S6 – age:15 - 18) from each Dundee secondary school, in the novel workshop model previously piloted in a successful event in Perth.  Selected academic and industry speakers will present challenges and visions for the climate transition in major socio-economic sectors (chosen in collaboration with local educators) and open a collective discussion with the young people. After initial presentations, young people will be divided in discussion teams where they will perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and STEEP (Social, Technology, Environmental, Economic and Political drivers of change) analysis of climate transition in each of the different socio-economic sectors, with the support of academic and industry experts. Following this analysis, young people will design a route map and recommendations to reach the desired future.

Young people, supported by academics and potential future employers, will learn about the climate transition and gain confidence in their own potential contributions and agency. This will create socio-ecological benefits for Dundee communities and environment by empowering the next generation of adults to make meaningful changes in our future society. After the workshop, students will receive a certificate of attendance from The James Hutton Institute, and their recommendations will be disseminated to target audiences in education, policy, business, and research through the project team’s communication pathways.

[the word cloud summarises the young people’s recommendations for policy during the pilot workshop in Perth]

ScrapAntics would like to begin a new project by employing a Resilience Worker. Their role would be to connect with the most vulnerable in our community, providing them with essential resources and items, offering accessible advice and education on climate action and exploring tangible changes people can make to emphasise sustainability in day-to-day life.                                             

The Resilience Worker would get to know individuals and families on a one to one basis, initiating conversations around climate topics and encouraging them to enact change in their lives, with the aim of positively impacting wider community change.

The worker would identify what direct support or signposting to agencies addressing financial, food or fuel poverty is most needed.

ScrapAntics have access to corporate donations of household essentials and many in our community are in desperate need of these items - but do not currently have the capacity for targeted distribution. The Resilience Worker would ensure that they reach people who need them most. These include bedding, towels, toiletries and cleaning supplies, food packs and clothing.

This role would particularly benefit those we work with in our Wellgate space who are often unemployed, from an asylum seeker or refugee background, have mental or physical health issues or suffer from isolation.

Campy Growers is the largest community growing space in Dundee. With passionate volunteers we grow and distribute hundreds of kilos of ethically grown food to various project across the city. We run workshops about gardening, biodiversity, cooking, harvest and wider events open to all, to raise awareness about climate change and food growing.  

What's missing is a location to run all our projects and activities: a living roof green gazebo. A place to gather, to share ideas and knowledge, to enjoy the sun whilst protected from the Scottish weather. A place with a positive climate impact. A place that will make the difference. 

Picture a L-shaped wooden gazebo, south facing and made from larch sourced from a local sawmill. Can you see it? It will have a guttering system to collect water so we can wash the produce and water our plants. But most of off all, it will have a sedum (green) roof which will capture CO2 emissions and support wildlife, improve air purification, increase biodiversity, and more.   

It will become a social space for the Collective and a central point for learning:  

•  We will run more workshops and events in relation to gardening, cooking, biodiversity and resilience. Although we ran several workshops last year, we were quite limited in terms of space, so we want to expand and make people feel welcome! Here is a wee taster of what we are planning for 2025: start your garden, botany, Harvest session, mushroom growing, cooking with seasonal veg, fermentation, learn about moths and bat, movie screening, open days and more.   
• Start a Climate Café style conversation: Every month we will run climate café style conversation giving the opportunity to everybody to share their thoughts about climate change. Campy Growers is an example of a proactive project which counter-act climate change. Being surrounded by food and green space changes the dynamic and impact of such conversations can have.    
• We will offer a space for our volunteers and visitors:  With our volunteers and visitors we talk about gardening for sure, but we also create connections, share aspirations and ideas. A dedicated area to relax, think, gather and enjoy homemade food together is the key of our Collective   
• We will use it as a packhouse for our weekly veg stalls and distribution, an open space visible to all visitors who want to get some vegetables or learn about community market gardening techniques. It is a self-sufficient space with its guttering system too. 

We need your vote to create to social space which will support the biodiversity and will allow us to run more events and workshop creating resilience and awareness about climate change and food growing.   

Fairfield Community Sports Hub are based within the North East of Dundee, and provide vital services for one of the poorest areas in the city.  As well as providing sports and activity in a way people can afford, the Hub also runs a Food Larder (Bank) which at present serves 1900 people across the community.  The Food Larder is supported entirley by volunteers anbd without this service many of the families would struggle to support themeselves and their children, with the basic necessitaties many of us take for granted. The Food Larder offers a vairety of products as well as food, which includes, fresh fruit & veg, healthy alternatives, special diets and allergies, and of course the pets in the household are catered for!  To allow us to provide such a vital resource for the community the most important thing we need is a van. Which collects foods from around Dundee including supermarkets, and donations made by the public. Without the van the Food Larder would not be able to run and 1900 would suffer as a result.What we are asking for is funding to secure a new electric van which would replace our current diesel van which is begining to show its age and due to its year of registration we are no longer able to go into the centre of town due to LEZ area Please help Fairfield COnmmunity Sports Hub and the community we serve by voting for us

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