Building awareness and understanding of climate change through creative card games for Cambodian youth
About Climate Quest
Climate change is a complex issue to understand — especially when you’re young and environmental curricula in school are underdeveloped and most scientific information is hard to understand. Our mission: to make climate education fun, understandable, and more accessible for Cambodia’s youth. Our approach: through card games!
Our idea for a climate card game was one of 1,100+ solutions from 60+ countries selected by the global Youth4Climate Call for Solutions in 2023. We spent 6+ months developing and testing two interactive games. We have been rolling out the games to the public through public game nights, game ambassadors, and a social media campaign. Get in touch if you’d like to obtain your own copies or engage us to host a workshop!
About the games
In "Little Earth," every choice impacts our planet. Will you and your teammates be able reduce your footprint in time?
The game “Little Earth” introduces the concept of carbon footprints, GHG emissions, and greenwashing. It helps players reflect upon how different actions have different impacts on the climate, and explore what actions are part of living a more sustainable, climate-friendly lifestyle.
What trade-offs are you willing to make? Will you choose Sustainable Progression or Progressive Destruction?
In the game “Greenhouse,” players race their way across a Stepping Board using development or resource tile cards. The more steps on a card, the faster the player will move forward... but they must weigh these steps against the cost of “carbon tokens” or the benefit of gaining “eco tokens.” In this way, players can explore the GHG emissions of various types of industry, energy, resource management, etc. and consider the consequences of societal and economic decisions.
“As a teacher of environmental studies, I used to rely on slide presentations, which felt outdated and didn’t really engage my students. But after participating in a community game event organized by Climate Quest, I found the games to be creative and fun ways to learn about the environment and climate action. I’m excited to get my own copy of the game and organize sessions to play it with my students.”
A teacher with a Phnom Penh-based organization
Be part of it!
Help us spread the game! Get in touch if you want to be an outreach partner, purchase copies, or engage us to facilitate a climate education workshop for you. We’d love to hear from you!
Our Outreach Strategy
University Workshops
We hosted fun climate awareness workshops with 175+ students at 5 universities in Battambang, Phnom Penh, and Siem Reap. Our team showed students how to play the games, and then after a few rounds of play, we facilitated discussions about climate action.
Youth Ambassadors
We recruited 10 high school and university students passionate about climate action. We provided training on climate change topics, community engagement, event planning, and more — and then they put their skills into action, co-facilitating game workshop with us!
Giveaway and Partner Outreach
We partnered with local youth-serving organizations to host game workshops. We also gave away a few dozen games – with accompanying facilitator guides – to youth associations and youth leaders who applied for a copy to play with their communities.
Online Promotion
We partnered with a few mission-driven content creators to amplify the game online: Zerow, Linna, and Think Plastic. We achieved a combined reach of nearly 53,000 on social media!
Watch Our Journey — See the Impact of Climate Quest!
Our Partners
The realisation of the first edition of our climate card games was possible thanks to the support of Youth4Climate, a joint initiative between UNDP and the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security.
Want to get involved?
Get in touch with the Campaign Creative Lead, Vandara Sin: [email protected] | Telegram: (+855) 77 488 585
