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Competition to Co-Design Community Engaged Learning Across Yorkshire

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Climate Plan
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Sustainable Curriculum
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We all know how valuable your University education can be. But we also know how hard it can be to stand out to potential employers and gain real world experience alongside your studies. 

We’ve joined up with Yorkshire Universities and its members for a Yorkshire wide student challenge that aims to better understand how students across the region could connect their academic learning with communities to make a real impact on local challenges. 

We need your ideas and creativity - and you could win cold hard cash for sharing them! 

What’s community engaged learning and why should I care? 

Community engaged learning, sometimes called ‘service learning’, connects what you’re learning in your course to real world challenges in local communities. It creates opportunities for you to learn, gain real world experience that will help you stand out to employers AND contribute to making positive change locally. 

It’s a win-win all round... and whilst this is already happening in lots of areas, we know it can be bigger and better. Which is where we need your help. 

By sharing your ideas and experiences, you can help universities across Yorkshire and beyond to build their community engaged learning programmes to benefit more people. And you can have fun, meet like minded people and could win a cash prize for doing so. 

What was that you said about cash prizes? 

This project is being run through Yorkshire Universities and the UPP Foundation as a live one-day competition in Leeds City Centre on Friday 1 December.  

On the day, teams of up to four students from each of the twelve members of the Yorkshire Universities partnership will work on a live brief for the chance to win a share of £3,000! 

And that’s not the only chance to win – if you want to represent the University of Leeds we want to see what you’ve got first! Send us your best idea and the best submission will win £250 and a spot at the live event! 

I’m in! How do I enter? 

The competition is open to all current students at the University of Leeds – any level and any subject! Simply shape an idea in response to this question and send it to us by midnight on Monday 20 November. 

“Considering the university’s approach to sustainability in service learning/community engaged learning, outline an activity, opportunity or initiative you would like to see incorporated into your course, or the wider university approach.” 

You can get together with friends or course mates to enter as a group of up to 4 people, or enter as an individual. Our panel of judges will choose the winning idea, and the team or individuals who will go through to the one-day competition and compete for the big prize.  All of the ideas submitted will also be shared with our Sustainable Curriculum programme team, so you could see your idea becoming a reality here at Leeds. 

You can send us your idea as a written proposal (up to 500 words), a project plan or social media campaign plan, an illustration or infographic to show off your idea or even a short (up to 3 minutes) video. 

Where do I start? 

To develop your idea you could think about what aspects of sustainability you find most important and want to learn more about, any activities you’ve already taken part in either through your studies or elsewhere that could be built on and improved. You can also look at the existing opportunities available for students – you can see some of them on our student knowledge hub. 

When selecting the winning idea we’ll be looking for: 

  • Engagement and impact - Is it likely to excite students and lead to real change? 
  • Novelty - Is this a new idea? 
  • Creativity - Is this an imaginative solution / approach? 
  • Scalability - Is the approach one which can be used at scale? 
  • Affordability - Is the approach likely to be costly or can it be delivered with modest / existing resources? 

Don’t forget to send your ideas to us via email to sustainability@leeds.ac.uk before midnight on Monday 20 November – and good luck! 

 

 

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United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to guide our activity. Our work on Sustainable Curriculum is linked to all of the SDGs, including:

  • Goal 4: Quality Education
  • Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Find out more about our impact on the SDGs.

United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality education  United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities