From air pollution in your neighbourhood, to ecosystems and energy sources, take time out to explore your environment this weekend.

Open to all and fun to attend, Imperial Festival’s Energy and Environment Zone will help you take control of your carbon footprint and local environment with a host of interactive exhibitions on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 May.

Meet the researchers who are working on some of the biggest climate challenges and find out how you can help create a cleaner, healthier lifestyle for your family and society.

Take the Carbon Footprint Challenge and test your knowledge of how the choices you make can leave both your wallet and your surroundings better off. Quizmaster and Earth Science and Engineering PhD student, Ben Yeager, said:

“Every day, each of us makes a series of decisions which, however small, have different consequences for the health of the planet, from deciding between the bus or the Tube, to choosing between chicken or steak for dinner. The Carbon Footprint Challenge is a surprising and fun way to better understand the impact of everyday decisions and take control of your carbon footprint”.

Ben is a student at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment and worked with his colleagues to create the Carbon Footprint Challenge for Imperial Festival as part of the Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet Doctoral Training Partnership programme.

Design your own ecosystem

Think you have what it takes to design an ecosystem? EcoBuilder, one of the most popular activities from Energy and Environment Zone 2016 returns for a second year and will be more addictive than ever. Add your favourite mix of plant and animal species into a virtual food web and play them off against each over generations of dinner-table-musical chairs. Join Dr Samraat Pawar from the Department of Life Sciences, Dr Dan Goodman and phD student Jonathan Zheng from Electrical and Electronic Engineering to test your design in the simulation and see what happens when new species are introduced or go extinct.

EcoBuilder at last years' Festival

Meet the pollution and health experts

Health shouldn’t be a gamble. Spin the Air Pollution Wheel to find out how you could be breathing cleaner air. Our interactive Healthy Environments exhibition is hosted by Dr Liz Hayes and her fellow scientists from the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health who will be on hand to demonstrate how small changes can have big impacts on personal health and the environment too.

How healthy is your neighbourhood?

Take a closer look at your neighbourhood at the Are greener spaces healtier spaces? exhibition. Dr Susan Hodgson from the School of Public Health whose research asks whether the amount of green space is better for the health and wellbeing of residents living there, and asks why? Does green space improve local air quality? Reduce noise from nearby roads? Are you more likely to be physically active if you live in a greener neighbourhood?

Hyde Park, our local green space

The Energy and Environment Zone at Imperial Festival will host a wide range of exciting, thought-provoking and fun exhibits to help individuals and society take meaningful action on climate change.

Meet the researchers in person at the Imperial Festival (6-7 May)

Imperial College London researchers talk live about their research at the Imperial Festival (6-7 May, South Kensington) – the College’s free public celebration of science, engineering and creativity.

Register for the Imperial Festival.

Index of Energy and Environment Zone attractions:

A solar-powered future (Sat, Sun)

Are greener spaces healthier spaces? (Sat, Sun)

Carbon Footprint Challenge (Sat, Sun)

Climate change and health: Has the die been cast? (Sat, Sun)

EcoBuilder: are you a good ecosystem builder? (Sat, Sun)

Healthy Environments (Sat, Sun)

How can we purify water with membranes? (Sat, Sun)

Imperial Racing Green (Sat, Sun)

Plastic fantastic - The future of electronics (Sat, Sun)

Plastic's not fantastic in our ocean (Sat, Sun)

Putting carbon dioxide in its place (Sat, Sun)

Solar energy: The efficiency challenge (Sat, Sun)

The future of aero-engines (Sat, Sun)

Wattown, the future district (Sat, Sun)

What about the waste? (Sat, Sun)

What makes a cloud rain? (Sat, Sun)