ClimatED : Climate Change Education for Gen-Z by Green Lead
ClimatED is a personalized climate change education platform in Asia that empowers youth to take climate actions with curated learning paths and resources for climate careers.
Climate change is a complex problem that requires multidimensional approaches to be solved. Educating the affected people regarding climate change and possible solutions is a fundamental approach to solving this global crisis.
South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate disasters. The whole region is living through a “new climate normal” in which heat waves, cyclones, droughts, and floods are challenging the limits of government, businesses, and especially the young generation.
According to the World Bank, more than half of all South Asians, or 750 million people in the 8 countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka — were affected by one or more climate-related disasters in the last two decades. The youths of south Asia are set to face the most extreme climate conditions in history.
But the big question is are the youth getting the education they need to prepare themselves for the climate crisis?
There is no specific climate change education curriculum for students in any south Asian country except for a few book chapters which are not sufficient.
Bangladesh has one-fourth of its total population in the 15-29 age group, around 45.9M. They go through school, college, and university where there is no educational opportunity to learn about climate change and possible actions. The scenario is quite the same for India, Nepal, and Pakistan.
In Bangladesh, around one million youths pursuing university degrees are aiming to take the frontline of development in Bangladesh. But there is no specific curriculum integrated or education opportunity to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge and skills to combat climate change.
They need to be educated on climate change which is drastically affecting their life in every dimension and should be equipped with the knowledge to understand, survive and thrive while they are set to face the deadliest consequences of climate change
The knowledge gap and lack of suitable programs are affecting the one million students to understand their role in climate change and their potential scope of contribution.
Based on our three years of research & effort at Green Lead, we have identified three factors that are contributing to the factor:
1. Traditional education system is failing to provide an integrated curriculum for climate change education.
2. The mass educational approach is not effective for the mindset of Gen Z
3. Lack of access to explore the career paths in solving climate change
The consequences are both immediate and longer-term.
Firstly, students and early professionals cannot understand the implication of climate change and are reluctant to environment-friendly behavioral change.
Secondly, recent graduates are not exposed to the existing career path they can pursue to solve climate change and build their careers.
Finally, they are not aware of possible climate actions that they can take to adapt and thrive in the climate crises.
We are developing a tech-enabled climate change education platform “ClimatED” to educate and empower the youth in South Asia. The web-based platform provides a personalized learning path based on specific user inputs.
The platform will ask a few questions to understand the need of a student and will create a personalized learning path tailored to specific individuals. The learning path will include interactive content including video lessons, quizzes, articles, challenges, and career recommendations.
The solution has been developed at “Green Lead” which I founded in 2020 with a single mission to educate youths about climate change by leveraging the power of social media. We have been experimenting with content for Gen-Z and trying to understand the best approach for the youth. We have developed interactive content, campaigns, events, quizzes, and videos and were successful to connect the youth with innovative activities on the complex yet necessary topics of climate change.
Based on the learning and a human-centered design approach, we are developing a web-based platform to create a personalized learning path based on user input. The content library is hosted on the cloud to be accessible from any part of the world. It will harness the power of AI to make the learning path suitable for and plan to include simulations and games to make it more exciting for our learners. A dedicated job portal for climate change & sustainability jobs will enable youth to pursue their career.
The climatED website can be accessed HERE
The climatED pitch can be accessed HERE
The ClimatED serves youth aged between (14-24) years. The solution is specifically targeted at university students aged (19-24) years who are pursuing degrees in specific domains i.e. engineering, medicine, law, etc, and exploring different career paths.
The climatED aims to create an impact in three main ways:
1. Educating undergraduate students ( i.e. mechanical engineering, computer science, business, biology, medical, law, etc) with the must-have knowledge of climate change and their domain’s perspective.
2. Empowering with access to the right information and exploring career paths in climate change that can directly contribute to climate solutions
3. Engaging youth in climate actions with rewarding challenges, and events and inspiring behavioral change.
Currently, the youth are not offered any climate change curriculum and action-driven knowledge to understand their role in this crisis.
It’s like sending them into the storm in the ocean without a boat.
They are underserved and highly likely to endure sufferings in terms of living conditions, health, career, and in life.
The solution provided by climatED aims to enlighten the underserved youths with the most powerful tool in the world i.e. Education. Once they are educated with relevant knowledge and gain clarity on their roles to fight climate change, they will find their own ways to deal with the challenges that come ahead.
Our domain-specific learning paths are able to connect directly with a student who gets information specifically tailored for him. The personalized learning path along with career resources and job boards will pave the way for youth in Asia to take on their adventure in this uncertain world.
We aim to answer only one question with ClimatED for youth in Asia:
How Can I Contribute to Solving Climate Change as an X?
X=Engineer, Doctor, Lawyer, Biologist, Businessman, anything!
Being part of Gen-Z, I along with my core team members am part of the targeted youth we aim to serve. At every point of building climatED, we feel like building it for ourselves first and empathized with every piece of the puzzle.
Being very close to nature in my childhood, I developed a modern eco-friendly city model when I was in school after moving to the city. While growing up, I studied and undertook several projects including commercializing urban farming and building aquaponics farms on unused rooftops, and pursued engineering to explore the scope of solving environmental problems around me.
While pursuing my genuine curiosity, I founded Green Lead in 2020 with the aim to educate myself along with my team members about the environment and how we can help solve the climate crisis. Our only aim was to start the conversation about climate change and educate through climate actions. We knew where youth spend most of their time and leveraged the power of social media to attract Gen-Z to engage with our content on climate change and realize its intensity.
From our years of research and interaction with the youth in the local communities, we have realized that the important piece of solving a global crisis like climate change should start with "education". Whatever single climate solution we talk about, it will only work if the people realize the implication of the problem and more importantly their role in solving this.
Here is brief summary of our team members:
1. Md. Fahim Hossain, Founder & Lead
-Management consultant at a digital business incubator and helping early-stage startups in Europe
-Former Regional Associate and managed 250+ startups in 4 regional summits across Asia
-Built the largest community of youth changemakers in Bangladesh as a Community Builder
-Former analyst at the largest angel investment network in Bangladesh.
-Entitled as ASME ESD Global Champion'21, Youth Climate Champion’21, Common Purpose Open Source Leader’19, Bronze Awardee-The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Compettition’18.
My full portfolio can be found on LinkedIn
2. Mohammad Iftekher, Operations Manager
-Huawei Seeds For The Future | Microsoft Student Partner | Sparks Ambassador @Unilever Bangladesh | Community Management
Full portfolio can be found HERE
3. Md. Jubair Uddin Zidan, Lead Designer
-Coveted content and product designer
Full portfolio can be found HERE
4. Sajidul Mawla, Web Master
-React developer with backend knowledge (node.js) and can work on a full stack project as a full stack web developer.
Full portfolio can be found HERE
5. Maayeesha Farzana, Education Content Analyst
-Research enthusiasts with deep interests in tech, society, and the environment.
Full portfolio can be found HERE
6. Shafin Hossain, Social Media Analyst
- Social media management with interests in branding & promotion.
Full portfolio can be found here HERE
Our team at Green Lead consists of 19 members including apprentice volunteers, part-timers, and contributing project-wise to develop climatED
We have followed a strategic approach to identify the pain points of youth and built the “climatED” on the premise of years of interaction and research at Green Lead. We have also drawn insights from our advisor who comes with a decade of experience in multiple domains.
We have started on the place where youth live and breathe nowadays i.e. Social media.
We have used social media platforms Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, and Twitter, and created content unique content to experiment with how youth interacts with those.
We focused on content innovation to attract Gen Z and interact with complex climate change issues. We developed content such as:
GreenSights: Analysis of a topic and actionable insights
Climate Quiz: Quiz on climate change topics
Climate Spotlight: Spotlighting climate actions taken by an individual
GreenShots: Short video clips on climate issues
We have arranged tree plantation campaigns webinars and events like ENGAGE: Inspiring Climate Change” and arranged challenges on:
- Write a Letter to Your Mother Earth
Draw Your Dream World
For each initiative we have undertaken, our main goal was to understand the youth and how can develop a better solution for the. The idea of “climatED” was built on these each piece of the puzzle and the platform can be the go-to place for youth to learn and act on climate change.
Green Lead website and our work can be accessed HERE
- Taking action to combat climate change and its impacts (Sustainability)
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
Founder