The Project
RealSense designed and developed a Climate Change Awareness Course for all SEPA staff, to support their compliance with legislation introduced by the Scottish Government.
Background
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is Scotland’s principal environmental regulator, protecting and improving Scotland’s environment. They employ around 1300 people across Scotland, and regulate and advise on a wide range of environmental activities.
SEPA needed support to deliver a brand-new piece of training to their workforce in response to new duties relating to climate change coming into force for public bodies in Scotland. We were confident in our ability to work collaboratively and creatively together alongside topic experts to fulfill SEPA’s learning requirements and the Climate Change Awareness E-Learning course was conceived.
Our Approach
An explanation of the learning objectives and high-level course outline was provided to us by SEPA and using the initial government paper and legislation draft documents as a core reference, we worked closely with their team to ensure the course covered all the importants aspects of the legislation.
We sourced external subject matter experts to help develop a more detailed content plan, covering climate change and its effects, the sense and impact of the new legislation, SEPA’s role within climate change, and case-studies of SEPA’s work and organisation activities affected by the legislation.
In order to engage learners with the learning content and align it with SEPA’s brand and culture, we aligned the course with SEPA’s latest brand guidelines and worked closely with the Marketing Communications Department, enrougaging regular reviews / check-in points with all stakeholders throughout the production lifecycle to ensure a quality approach was followed in delivering all aspects of the learning.
With a swift and coordinated participation from all the stakeholders involved, and a development team working together towards common aims and objectives, we were delighted to deliver this engaging digital learning piece on time and on budget.
The Challenges
To manage the large volumes of information available on Climate Change, its impact on the public and on business, and the specific role of SEPA within this, in order to present information that was at the same time sufficiently detailed to be informative but brief enough to fit within a 30–40-minute online training course.
To present information on climate change in a new and innovative way that would re-engage leaners with a much-publicised subject.
The Outcome
We created a course in line with its corporate image reflecting the SEPA brand, photographs reflecting their workplace and media reflecting their internal communications.
With the use of engaging media, including video, dynamic graphics, and corporate imagery, we presented the information innovatively, including frequent use of interactions to maintain learner interest, and case studies to underline the relevance of the information.
The course was very well received across the SEPA workforce as well as the Scottish Government’s climate change team.
Our collaboration in the production of this learning experience has enabled us to acquire knowedge and skills invaluable for future projects relating to climate change, environmental impact, pollution control as well as the importance of personal behavioural change, how that can help influence team and organisational change.
We explored how to use an Act of Law, Regulation or Directive or Best Practice Code as a primary piece of source material, collaborated with experts, established learning outcomes and created engaging learning content to deliver core messages in a way that was simple and easy to comprehend, ensured learning objectives were achieved and most importantly encouraged positive changes in behaviour to help contribute towards and align with the broad goals of the latest legislation.
