The Cool It! Climate Challenge
Background
The British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association (BCSEA), a registered charity providing public and youth education runs a flagship program, Cool It! Climate Leadership Training. This program educates young people on climate science, providing them with the tools to take action at home to reduce their environmental impacts. Currently aimed at students in grades 4 through 7, BCSEA provides workshops in classes that lead to students participating in a 4-week climate challenge, which includes providing actionable steps to reducing greenhouse gases. Presently, students are given a carbon footprint quiz that allows them to audit their current at home greenhouse gas practices and then they are provided with a booklet with 24 actions in 8 categories that give the students and their families a roadmap to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
The BCSEA hired Vibe9 Design to digitize this climate challenge and carbon footprint quiz so that it is offered on a web platform rather than a printed booklet.
The Result
BCSEA had a number of goals for the project. One goal was to have the carbon quiz done at the beginning of the 4 week challenge and redone at the end of the 4-week challenge. Another goal was to have carbon emissions information being attached to each action in challenge (i.e. biking instead of driving a car to work will save xxx in CO2e) providing the user with a ghg emission reduction number at the end of the challenge.
In order to achieve these goals, Vibe9 Design was provided with a detailed set of complex calculations that was used to create a custom plug-in. This plug-in was built to integrate with Craft CMS in order to achieve the above goals.
Vibe9 also provided BCSEA with the he ability to create individual profiles, ways to group individual profiles (i.e into classes, workshops, etc), and parental access to student profiles, as well as the ability to create various reports based on inputted data.
Overall, Vibe9 Design provided BC SEA with a well-designed engaging online tool that can be easily expanded in the future.
our role / deliverables:
Mobile friendly, responsive, and fast
Before this project even began, our client considered an app, but after some research and cost analysis the decision was made to create a web based platform.
Visually Appealing
We were tasked with designing a site that appealed to a wide range of users, from elementary students, high-school students, and the community. The site needed to be intuitive, informative, and fun. The layout, graphics, and colours all helped to achieve this.
Charts, Icons, and More
When you first sign up you are prompted to complete a Carbon Quiz, your carbon footprint is then compared to the BC Average. You are then prompted to begin the 4 week challenge. Once that's complete, you are prompted to complete the quiz again to see if you have made lasting changes.
All the data is stored in Craft CMS and BCSEA can tabulate results so classrooms, individuals, and stakeholders can see their efforts.
Problem Solving
It was important for BCSEA to be able to compare results between classrooms in the same school, between schools, and within the community. They needed an easy way to manage users and data. They needed a system that could handle user accounts, make content editing easy, and display huge amounts of data with speed. The solution: Craft CMS.
In order to tabulate answers for each question in the Cool It! Climate Challenge, complex calculations were required. These calculations were presented to us in an excel spreadsheet - an unusable format for web. Vibe9 created a custom plug-in that was designed to integrate into Craft CMS, providing BCSEA with an easy way to create reports and present their data.