Bangladesh’s children witness shrinking wetlands & green nature, polluted rivers, worsening heat, and waste-choked drains, yet classrooms treat these as remote phenomena. PHAL-Schools Plus aims to enable students to see how planetary-health degradation threatens their own future, link it to equity & conflict, and act to restore biodiversity and sustainable urban ecosystems.
PHAL-Schools Plus is a school-based club-style program that integrates environmental science with civic learning and peaceful problem-solving. Learners (10-16 yrs) form inclusive eco-civic clubs, guided by teachers and supported by:
*AI-Chatbot Mentor: answers eco-health & biodiversity questions, guides mapping & project planning in Bangla/English, and suggests conflict-sensitive collaboration steps.
*Open-source mapping & sensing tools: to document canals, trees, wetlands, heat-hotspots, waste hot-spots.
*Gamified Learning & Reporting App: helps students plan, track and celebrate impact ( e.g., waste diverted, trees planted, native-species habitats restored, conflict incidents reduced ).
*Teacher micro-modules: project-based learning, climate and biodiversity literacy, peace education, gender-responsive facilitation, planetary-health thinking.
*Students co-design low-cost nature-based & civic solutions – rain-barrels for water harvesting, shade-tree corridors & native gardens for heat-mitigation & pollinator support, wetland micro-restoration actions, waste-segregation & composting, green & safe-route mapping for girls, peer-conflict-mediation pledges.
They monitor outcomes via the app and present results at quarterly school-community dialogues to parents, ward committees, and city leaders. Pilots show that youth gain eco-civic agency and empathy as facilitators, and communities see tangible improvements—cleaner drains, more green shade, and revived wetlands.
Expansion Plan:
*2025: Pilot in 1 schools in Keranigonj, Dhaka (~ 100 students & 20 teachers).
*2026-27: Expand to 5 schools in Dhaka & outskirts, set up 5 Youth Civic-Action & Eco-Restoration Hubs, and roll out AI mentor & gamified app at scale. Publish a bilingual open toolkit & teacher notes.
*2028: Reach 5,000 learners and embed planetary health, biodiversity literacy & civic action approaches into the national Life & Livelihood and Civic-Education strands.
A school forms an Eco-Civic Action Club, teacher takes short online orientation, downloads starter-kit + app, chooses one local challenge (e.g., blocked canal or loss of shade-trees), and follows the AI-guided 8-week Action Cycle with built-in mapping, monitoring & playful reporting.
