Things to do in 2020 for a healthy mind, body and planet

If your new year’s resolution is to live better for yourself, your community and the planet, we are here to support you. CAT has a great range of courses that can help you take time out to appreciate nature, develop practical skills and explore how we can create a more sustainable world.

Start campaigning

The last few years have seen the rise of many campaigns around climate action, from Fridays for Future, to communities, councils and governments declaring Climate Emergency declarations. Often starting with individual actions, the result has been communities coming together to take a stand against climate change.

If you haven’t yet got involved in demanding action on Climate Change, 2020 is the year to get involved, whether it’s helping create small scale change in your community or demanding change on a global level.

Our Zero Carbon Britain and postgraduate module short courses bring together a wide array of individuals from far and wide to explore sustainability issues. They feature lectures, seminars and discussions and can be a great place for ideas to spawn.

Learn more about your own, your community’s, and the world’s energy provision

To reach a Zero Carbon Britain we need to rethink energy provision. This means changes in global energy provision, but also in our own homes and communities. Across the UK several community energy schemes are already in practice, see whether you can join an existing project, or learn how you could implement one in your community.

We are running a new suite of courses in 2020, ‘Renewables for Households’, designed for those wanting to install renewables in their home, community or business. We also run several lecture based short courses exploring sustainable energy provision locally and globally.

Woodland walks

Going for a walk in the woods, whittling a few sticks and enjoying a flask of tea under the trees… we’ve got some great courses that allow you to take time out, reconnect with nature or get active and crafty.

But if you’d like to delve deeper into exploring woodlands and nature, we’ve got some great courses coming up, including:

Social Forestry OCN: 31 March to 3 April 2020 – explore the theories and evidence underpinning wellbeing in woodlands.
Sustainable Woodland Management: 23 to 27 November 2020 – gain practical woodland management skills and learn about biodiversity conservation.
Restoration Ecology: 16 to 20 March 2020 – join CAT MSc students and explore restoring ecosystems, the potential implications and methodologies for evaluating success.

Gardening and growing food

Biodiversity is vital for a healthy planet, affecting the air we breathe, food security levels and the wildlife around us. Having a variety of fruit and vegetable plants, flowers and trees are key in replenishing the biodiversity we are so rapidly losing.

If you’d like to boost your knowledge and skills in gardening and growing, join us for a short course in 2020. Lecture based course Sustainable Food Production explores the global food system, and for practical skills we have an exciting new suite of weekend gardening courses run in collaboration with the National Botanic Garden of Wales in 2020:

Build a Tiny Garden: 28 to 29 March 2020 – Learn to create a productive garden and grow veggies in small spaces.
Build a Wildlife Garden: 23 to 25 May 2020 – Discover how you can overhaul your garden and create a spot that helps biodiversity thrive.
Build an Edible Garden: 13 to 14 June 2020 – Learn how you can improve your soil and create nutrient rich soil perfect for growing delicious veggies.
Build a Dry Garden: 18 to 19 July 2020 – Explore how you can create a garden that will thrive even in dry hot summers.

Build, refurbish or make something

We’ve a great range of courses that allow you to develop practical skills while exploring sustainability.

Want to explore how you can reuse materials, our Build a Lapsteel Guitar and DIY Furniture: Upcycling with Pallets are a great way to get creative with upcycled materials. Or if you want to explore in depth how we can use less material in the building industry, you could join our CAT MSc students on our new for 2020 course, Circular Design Principles in Architecture.

New to working with wood? We’ve got courses such as Shrink Pot Carving and Spoon Carving that are great for getting started. Or if you want something a bit more practical, our Build a Shed: For Absolute Beginners is a great way to get started learning to build.

Want to work with sustainable building materials? Our courses Sustainable Building Materials and Build a Natural House (which developed out of our Build a Tiny House course) are a great way to get an overview of working with a variety of building materials, gain tricks and understand some of the pros and cons of each material.

Tired of living in a cold house, or want to make your house more energy efficient and better for the environment? We have a range of courses that’ll help you develop the skills and knowledge needed to renovate your home.