Challenge groups

Challenge groups are your dedicated working group spaces to co-design a tangible education for climate output, whatever it might be! They bring you together with other participants to develop ideas, find collaborators and support one another in turning your green education ideas into impactful action.

There are five challenge phases that broadly cover your co-design journey. 

Group convening

Once a participatory challenge has been established, the next step is to bring together the challenge core group and agree on the challenge ambition, process and timeline.

Establish the challenge core group:

• community members who actively engaged with the challenge idea during the Challenge Hub phase
• other individuals who may be interested in contributing to the participatory challenge, bringing a diversity of expertise, practice and experience
• the challenge co-facilitators
• a representative of the Education for Climate Secretariat

Define the challenge ambition, process and timeline:

1. Set up and convene an initial challenge event to bring together the challenge core group, with support from the Education for Climate Secretariat.

     2. During the event, agree on the following elements:

• Challenge ambition: what the group aims to achieve through the participatory challenge.
• Challenge process: how the group will work together and approach the ideation phase.
• Phase timings: the initial timeframe for each challenge phase.

     3. Update the challenge space to reflect the outcomes of the discussion.

     4. Post a challenge update for the community, summarising what was discussed and agreed.

     5. Review and adapt as needed, recognising that the challenge ambition, process and timings may evolve as the participatory challenge develops.

Ideation

The challenge group has been established and has agreed how it will work together. The ideation phase focuses on generating ideas, suggestions and examples that can contribute to the challenge ambition.

• Start the discussion: Facilitators can revisit the challenge ambition and share an initial idea, suggestion or good practice example to encourage participation and contributions from the wider challenge group.
• Clearly communicate how long the ideation phase will remain open for contributions.
• Encourage an open exchange of ideas, suggestions, recommendations, concrete situations and examples that can help address the challenge ambition.

Support participation throughout the ideation process.

• Share updates and encourage participants to further develop and concretise their ideas.
• Identify connections between emerging ideas and interests where relevant.
• Monitor other participatory challenges and draw attention to ideas that may be relevant to the challenge.
• Invite community members who may be interested in contributing to join the challenge.
• Promote the challenge through social media to increase visibility and participation.
• Share an update: Post a challenge update for the community summarising the outcomes of the ideation process.

Selection and structuration 

The ideation phase may generate a wide range of ideas related to the challenge ambition. This phase focuses on identifying which ideas the challenge group wishes to develop further and how the work will be organised.

• Select ideas: Reconvene the challenge group to discuss which ideas should be selected, prioritised or explored in greater depth.
• Set up a participatory challenge event.
• Co-decide the form and type of outcome that will be developed through the challenge.

If additional ideas emerge that could form the basis of a separate participatory challenge, submit them to the Challenge Hub for further consideration.

• Structure the work: Review the challenge timeline, agree on timeframes for co-working and establish intermediate checkpoints.

Where needed, smaller groups may meet separately to work on specific aspects of the challenge.

Reflect any agreed changes in the challenge phase timings.

• Share an update: Post a challenge update for the community summarising the ideas selected for further development.

Describe the considerations that led to the selection of these ideas and outline how the challenge group intends to develop the proposed outcome.

This stays much closer to the original wording, order and intent, while simply making it read more clearly and professionally.

Co-working 

At this stage, the challenge group has identified one or more ideas for a concrete education for climate action and can begin working together to develop them further.

• Review ways of working: During the group convening phase, the challenge group outlined how it would work together and which facilitation approach it would follow. Review whether these arrangements remain suitable and agree on any adaptations that may be needed.

Agree on expectations and roles, including who will contribute to different activities and how the group will proceed.

• Organise collaborative work: Post co-creation materials as a 'co-working file' topic within the challenge space to make them easier for participants to find and access.

Keep collaboration within the challenge space and avoid linking to external collaboration files.

• Develop the challenge outcome: Facilitators coordinate the challenge ambition and support progress in designing the education for climate outcome while encouraging continued participation from the challenge group.
• Monitor progress and determine when the challenge group considers the tangible outcome complete.

Once the outcome is finalised, upload it in the challenge space as a 'challenge outcome' and ensure that it is tagged with as much relevant information as possible.

• Prepare for co-validation: Identify suitable reviewers by considering the subject areas, practice fields and experience fields covered by the outcome, as well as the audiences with whom it could be tested and applied. Consult the pool of reviewers to support this process.
• Notify the Education for Climate Secretariat and community managers when the outcome is ready.

The challenge outcome then moves to the co-validation phase.

• Post a challenge update for the community summarising lessons learned from the co-working process.

Co-validation 

Once your tangible output has been developed, it enters the co-validation phase. 

Review the criteria and discover whether your contribution is ready for validation.

What is evaluated?

Well-defined structural elements

• an accessible abstract of no more than 250 words and five keywords
• learning outcomes and/or action goals
• the target audience(s)
• the language(s) of the content
• correct references
• data, information and processes that are replicable and reproducible
• all necessary materials provided in one place
• compliance with the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Well-shaped process elements

• how easy, flexible and practical the outcome is to teach, apply, adapt, use in different contexts and take action on
• the extent to which interactive and participatory elements are included and clearly described
• how effectively the education for sustainability action story is communicated to encourage use of the outcome.

Overall recommendation

How is it evaluated?

• Within the extended peer community, peer reviewers act as subject, practice and experience experts to support the quality review of participatory challenge outcomes.
• The pool of reviewers is consulted by challenge facilitators during the co-validation phase to identify and contact potential co-validators with expertise relevant to the participatory challenge.
• The Education for Climate Secretariat will:

  • co-confirm that the selected reviewers are independent from the participatory challenge and appropriate for the review

  • support the identification of additional reviewers where needed

  • coordinate an agreed review deadline with all participants

• Reviews are conducted openly and are posted within the participatory challenge under the 'co-validation review' topic.
• The Education for Climate Secretariat collates and reviews the co-validation results and confirms whether the outcome will be added to the Knowledge Library.
• Challenge facilitators are encouraged to celebrate the achievement of the challenge group, share updates with participants and explore opportunities for further action.

If your challenge meets the requirements, it will be included as a resource in the Knowledge Library.