Hayley J. Fowler

Extracurricular citizen science and hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) projects can ensure that climate and sustainability education is not just superficial but truly transformative. Through working under the guidance of academic partners, young people can develop a deep appreciation for climate science and, most importantly, become aware of the real-world sustainable solutions being developed to address the consequences of our changing climate. We present the experiences of four stakeholders from one case study involving middle school students (9–13 years) and their teachers working on a climate change and sustainable drainage system (SuDS) project with academics from Newcastle University and the Schools Engagement programme of the Royal Society. We found that all stakeholders considered it to be a successful project with significant benefits, including engaging learning in the pupils, a challenge for the teachers, and meaningful data collection for the academic team. The funding organisation thought the positive interactions that they try to encourage between students and STEM partners were evidenced in this project perfectly. Young people are future decision makers; this type of project can enable them to develop essential skills and an understanding of a range of STEM careers. Subsequent developments may include refining the way similar projects are run.

Natural hazards often occur in combination with other natural hazards rather than as isolated events. While some combinations of hazards are well studied and their physical connection is increasingly understood, other combinations have received considerably less attention. High temperatures are known to be an important component for conditions that lead to heavy rainfall; however, sequences of heatwaves followed by heavy rainfall are not well understood, especially in a compound event context. Here, we analyse heatwave–heavy rainfall events across Australia using rainfall observations at hourly resolution. Our results show that heavy rainfall is more likely to occur if preceded by a heatwave, demonstrating that heatwave–heavy rainfall sequences should be seen as temporally compounding events. In particular, many regions in Australia experience both more frequent and more extreme wet days immediately following a heatwave. This behaviour is strongest in coastal regions, especially on the Australian east coast. These findings highlight the need for heatwave–heavy rainfall sequences to be studied as compounding events, as future changes in either hazard is likely to have impacts on related risks such as flash flooding.