What does climate change mean to you? We asked punters at Imperial Festival

Visitors to the future city of 'Wattown' at the Imperial Festival

Last weekend thousands of visitors enjoyed the annual Imperial Festival, with the Energy & Environment themed zone hosted by the Grantham Institute.

From air pollution in your neighbourhood, to ecosystems and energy sources, more than 17,000 visitors took time out to explore what science and research means to them at the Imperial Festival last weekend.

In this video roundup of the Energy and Environment Zone at Imperial Festival 2017, we ask "what does climate change mean to you?", and, crucially, "what is the solution?"

Imperial Festival is an annual event where visitors are invited to meet Imperial College London researchers who are working on some of the biggest climate challenges facing society.

One of ten themed areas, the Energy and Environment Zone featured activities, demonstrations, games and experiments that encouraged people to engage with ways they can help to create a cleaner, healthier lifestyle for their families, businesses and society.

Interactive exhibits included the future city of 'Wattown' (pictured above), an interactive model of energy supply and demand in a town of the near future, and EcoBuilder, an interactive ecosystem simulator game where plants and animal species play off against each other over generations of dinner-table-musical chairs (play online).

Ecotarian Naomi Pratt talks to visitors at the Imperial Festival

The zone was hosted by the Grantham Institute, one of Imperial's six Global Challenge Institutes, where staff work to maximise the impact of Imperial College London research in climate change and the environment. This year, the zone featured activities created by 16 different groups, including teams from the Energy Futures Lab and Imperial Racing Green displaying solar powered vehihicles.

Six groups of Grantham Institute PhD students from the Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet DTP presented their interdisciplinary Challenge Team outreach projects that form part of their programme work. In addition to the Energy and Environment Zone, this included an exhibition of fine art landscapes ruined by environmental change in the Contemplation Zone, and in the Food Zone a game exploring the role of pollinating insects for securing our food supply, and long-running project on sustainable eating, The Ecotarians (pictured above).

A full list of contributors and their contact details can be found in this previous article.

Grantham Institute Communications Manager, Simon Levey, introduces the Imperial Festival and the Food Zone in the video below, by City University London journalism Master's students Alexis Sogl and Laura Creese.