Climate change disproportionately affects girls, including their ability to get an education. Climate change amplifies existing gender inequalities, as UN Women pointed out earlier this year—in lower- and middle- income countries especially. Because many women are employed in agriculture, during periods of environmental crisis like drought or flooding women must work harder to secure income and resources. This increased burden is also borne by daughters who leave school to help their mothers. UNICEF backs this up with a 2011 report showing that “girls drop out of school at higher rates than boys during climate-related social disruption and forced migration”.
Girls leaving school prematurely is a double blow to climate resilient communities—educating girls can reduce carbon emissions and enable the world to better adapt to the climate crisis. A 2017 Brookings Institute study suggests that for every additional year of schooling a girl receives on average, her country’s resilience to climate disasters can be expected to improve by 3.2 points (as measured by the ND-GAIN Index, which calculates a country’s vulnerability to climate change in relation to its resilience).
In their report “A Greener, Fairer Future: Why Leaders Need to Invest in Climate And Girls’ Education” the Malala Fund points out that educating girls also ensures there’s “a large, skilled workforce to support a successful transition to a low-carbon economy”. Education also “encourages girls to participate in and lead innovations in climate resilient and green technologies.”
On this final point, Technovation girls are already leading the charge. Technovation helps girls develop technical and critical thinking skills to make their visions of climate justice a reality. Every year, thousands of girls around the world choose to solve issues related to the environment. In 2021, 22% of all participants worked on environmental problems.
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Divya M., a Technovation student from Canada, told us that when she began working on her project, she didn’t feel like climate change affected her personally. By the time she was done however, she was volunteering with a local environmental organization and considering turning her project into an operational business. “Technovation helped me develop a passion for the environment, build confidence, and most of all, make new friends who had the same passion for learning and trying new things like I do.”
Divya and the thousands of other girls like her deserve access to the tools and skills necessary to bring their innovations to life. Technovation is proud to begin work this spring on climate change curriculum in partnership with the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, UNESCO, and Service Now.
What Technovation’s climate change curriculum will include
This new climate curriculum will be incorporated into our existing curriculum and will focus on three UN Sustainable Development Goals: Clean Water and Sanitation and Sustainable Consumption and Production and Climate Action. The climate curriculum will include:
- a guide to help girls to identify which problem to solve around climate that is meaningful in their area, and that could really be helped by individual actionsthrough mobile or AI technologies—that is more impactful than some common solutions like sorting recycling
- educational videos featuring scientists sharing their expertise on climate change and its effects
- examples of accessible technical solutions to help achieve these climate-related goals
- streamlined resources to direct focus around these complex issues
Teaching Girls how to solve complex, real-world problems
Most real-world problems, like the climate crisis, are complex, affecting and affected by multiple systems. To prepare young people to face these challenges, we need to better prepare and support them. This could include practicing solving real-world problems they face every day and drawing stronger connections between human behavior and the natural environment.
For Technovation, this means developing resources that guide girls to think more critically about climate change and local environmental problems and pushing them to think beyond recycling and waste disposal apps. Girls want to solve big problems—this curriculum is another step towards properly equipping them.
You can help girls develop climate solutions too
These videos and guides are just the first step. We want to do more, but we could use your help. Your donations will help us expand our vision and deepen our lessons so we can provide girls with a firm foundation to make their visions for climate justice a reality.