11-Year-Olds Design School of the Future in Fortnite to Tackle Climate Challenge
Climate Change All Change (CCAC) has released "Desert School," an educational experience in Fortnite co-designed by the students of City Junior School and the design studio DaeWha Kang Design.
Set in a near future where climate change has turned London into a desert, the player uses their skills to fix Desert School, an autonomous building designed to produce its own energy, water, and food that has been damaged during a sandstorm. As they complete engaging puzzles and explore the interior of the building, they learn about the technology that makes the building sustainable and about general strategies to combat climate change. Fortnite’s wide user base means thousands of young people have the opportunity to engage with the climate change topic in an environment they already love and use.
Empowering the Next Generation
Players are immersed in a future world where humans survive thanks to environmentally smart architecture. The design of the school shows innovative ways of adapting to cope with extreme climate while reducing contribution to further climate change. DaeWha Kang, co-founder of CCAC says, "Children will face the challenges that result from climate change. Inspiring the next generation of designers will equip them to be active participants in the solution, rather than passive victims."
CCAC Mission: Educate Through Co-Design
CCAC designers visited City Junior School during the spring term and organized workshops where students learned about climate change and sustainable design. As they acquired this knowledge, they worked on architectural designs where they imagined how buildings might adapt to extreme weather (flooded, extreme cold, extreme heat). At the end of the program, students presented the final drawings describing their designs and then CCAC designers translated them into professional architectural designs through realistic visualizations. For this year’s edition of the program, DaeWha Kang Design developed the children's winning scheme into the fully realised desert school game experience. Oscar, age 11, describes his experience as “imaginative and inspirational, it was incredible to see what our designs had been turned into after our weeks of hard work".
CCAC has been working with schools since 2020. The V&A Museum in London has just opened “Imagining Tomorrow,” an exhibition displaying CCAC's work selected from more than one thousand children, ten designers, and six schools all around the UK.
Desert School is available to play on the Fortnite platform. Use the island code 3960-5106-3724 to play!
