Climate4classrooms - www.climate4classrooms.org
Climate4Classrooms is an innovative set of educational resources about climate change for teachers and students of 11+. It is a multi-language website that has been successfully piloted in the UK, China, Mexico and Indonesia. British Council has been working with the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Meteorological Society in the UK to create lesson plans and resources for teachers that can be easily customised for different countries. British Council ultimately has a vision to build a broad bank of educational materials by inviting each participating country to contribute their own locally designed resources.
C4C is the first website to use national level climate projections tailored to individual countries alongside introductory lessons about climate and climate change science. It allows teachers and students to see how their nations and others around the world might be affected by climate change. Using dynamic multimedia, the website inspires young people to take action on climate change and give them opportunities to share ideas and experience with their peers in other countries. In the teaching resources, each module has clear learning outcomes, activity plans and student activity sheets. Meanwhile, a ‘My Climate’ section allows schools to log in and upload their own case studies.
C4C is the first ever comprehensive resource website on climate change in Bangla. This pioneering initiative will eventually lay down the path of taking the climate education forward up to the grassroots level. To bring this web-based educational resource into the classrooms British Council is partnering with Teachers Development Institute to orient school teachers on the resources that are available on the website.
“3000 miles to go”
“3000 miles to go” is a nationwide awareness campaign that took the new climate change educational resource (climate4classrooms.org) to all 64 districts around Bangladesh and screened films made by British Council’s Climate Champions through a mobile cinema to spark discussions about climate change. The campaign was undertaken jointly by British Council and Wild Eye in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank.
The journey started on 27th October 2011 from Panchagor and concluded on 16th January 2012 in Dhaka. The films screening was followed by discussions with the public which built a basic understanding and awareness on climate change among the people from all over Bangladesh who are often victims of climate change. For the first time this audience had a chance to understand on what is happening around by watching the films, asking questions and listening to the experts.
The campaign team also took interviews of a number of people from diversified background from each district and captured their views and experience on climate change. These testimonials interviews will be used as a part of a documentary film mainly that is currently being made.
Postcard Competition
The nationwide ‘Design a postcard’ competition invited school students from 6th to 10th grade to share their experiences of climate change through art and the sharing of stories. Winning entries will be exhibited in a global art gallery. We are working with 900 schools in all 64 districts in Bangladesh to run this competition. In each school we will distribute a set of postcards and posters to share the findings of our research that call for wider awareness, introduce key questions and tell stories of climate change and how young people are responding to it. The postcards will also be uploaded to a virtual map and a selection of them will be posted to young people in other countries as an invitation for them to also tell their stories and join the discussion.
To promote understanding of climate change among young students, British council Bangladesh and Wild Eye in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank, initiated a nationwide ‘design a postcard’ competition. Students were asked to share their experiences of climate change through art and the sharing of stories and around 930 schools from different parts of the country participated in the competition. We received nearly 17,000 innovative and attractive entries to the competition where the young people of Bangladesh shared their thoughts, stories, experiences, imagination and creativity on climate change. Best 40 postcards from the competition were showcased at UNFCCC Climate Conference (COP 17) held in Durban, South Africa.
The winner of the completion will be announced through a National Postcard Exhibition on the second week of March 2012. The winner will get to represent Bangladesh at a Global Postcard Exhibition to be held in the UK later in the year.
Profile of Climate Champion's project
Lubna Seal
Lubna Seal, a student of Master of Resource and Environmental Management (MREM) in North South University, Dhaka, is working as a Researcher under Climate Change, Biodiversity and DRR Unit in Unnayan Onneshan. The proposed name of her project is ‘Rain water harvesting and injecting into open well through Back Washing Method to ensure fresh water availability in coastal zone of Bangladesh’. The objective of the project is to ensure fresh water in the location of Bangladesh where there is a sever scarcity of safe drinking water because of salinity intrusion to both surface and ground water sources. The project also aims to introduce the method to the community, a cost effective and environment friendly method, and raise awareness among them so that they could themselves construct and operate the method and can combat salinity problem to a certain extent.
Shegufta Newaz
Shegufta Newaz, a student of Architecture in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, is also working as an intern in ‘VOLUME 0’ which is one of the prominent architecture firms in Bangladesh. As a climate champion, her project is to establish climate resilient architecture to battle climate change in a sustainable way. It includes compiling all the work of sustainable climate responsive architecture in Bangladesh, developing a design module and sharing these information and knowledge with a wider audience through an exhibition. Further dissemination will be done through written publication, media coverage and social media to motivate and engage more people in this sustainable development.
Monzur Morshed Rakib
Manjur Morshed Rakib, a student of MBA in Institute of Business Administration and Niazul Islam, an undergraduate student of National University are jointly working to implement an interesting project, titled ‘Climate Caravan’. Aim of the project is to raise awareness among the mass people about climate change. These vans will travel different places of Dhaka city with environment friendly decorated pull vans to attract the attention of people, engage them with the project and inspire them to take immediate action to mitigate climate change. They will also try to reach people through different online social media (Blog, Facebook etc.).
If you have any queries please contact:
Sareka Jahan
Project Coordinator, Climate Change
British Council
5 Fuller Road, Dhaka 1000
sareka.jahan@britishcouncil.org
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