The TTT Education Group was launched at Education for Community Powerdown, on Wednesday 7th November 2007 at St John's Church, Bridgetown, where a series of leading thinkers and practitioners talked about the challenges for Education in preparing for a low energy society.

In a departure from the usual format at TTT talks, Education for Community Powerdown provided an opportunity to hear a series of speakers talk briefly from a range of educational perspectives, before opening out into a broader discussion and questions.

Abelardo Brenes is a research fellow at the University for Peace, a Treaty organisation set up by the UN in 1980, and based in Costa Rica. Ed O'Sullivan is Professor of Education at the University of Toronto, a director of the Transformative Learning Centre and runs graduate courses on ecological issues. Alan Dyer is from the University of Plymouth and Centre for Sustainable Futures, and has been involved in regional environmental education in the south west for many years. Rachel Roberts works for Phoenix Education and the English Secondary Schools Association, which advocates democratising schools. Liz Meadows works for EcoActive and provided a Primary School perspective, Stephen Jones needs no introduction as the Principal of KEVICC, and Rob Hopkins, from TTT, talked about his experience in Further Education in Kinsale, Ireland, where he set up the first two year full time permaculture course in the world.
 
Aims & Objectives

What would education look like in a lower energy world?
This is the question which the TTT education group decided to address.
Schools are a key catalyst for change, and need to anticipate social and economic developments if we are to create a thriving, sustainable community. Could our schools look more like farms or craft centres in ten years time? All of us will need to adapt, and the TTT Education Group aimed to assist schools, colleges and the wider community to gain the skills and access the resources to achieve this.
The group's main objectives for its first year were:
• To develop and facilitate a network of local environmental and experiential educators
• To build positive links with the schools and colleges in and around Totnes
• To develop projects designed to engage the wider community and increase awareness of peak oil and climate change issues and solutions.

What Happened?

When the facilitator left the area in the summer of 2008 no one stepped forward to take her place. What happened instead was that one of the group, already involved in the Transition Tales project, took on the role of facilitating that project, and the work it was already doing in schools, and realized that the way to achieve some of the aims of the original education group was by getting active in one project and growing from there.
Many of the education group joined this project and the group is now a thriving team dedicated to actively working in local schools, presenting at local conferences and collaborating at events aimed at young people.