Energy Globe World Award 2019

Finalist in the category Youth

Himalayan Environmental Rhythm Observation and Evaluation System is the first nationwide school based initiative to monitor the climate change and its impact on mountain ecosystems in Bhutan. 21 schools, representing different ecological zones and geographic regions of Bhutan, are currently involved in the HEROES project. Annually, over 400 students from 21 schools are engaged in monitoring seasonal lifecycles of plants and their yearly variation right in their respective school backyards.

Initial situation
The Himalayas are one of the most iconic mountain ranges on the planet. The forests and the watersheds in these mountains support an estimated tenth of the world‘s population. As such, in addition to being a storehouse of unique biological diversity and storing a major chunk of the world‘s water in the form of ice, the Himalayas also regulate regional climatic conditions and provide crucial eco-system services.

Solution
One of the objective of the project is to enhance climate literacy, especially in terms of promoting enquiry based learning in environmental education in Bhutan. Such learning is very limited, if not, non-existent in the current education system of Bhutan. By implementing this environmental curriculum, students are expected to experience scientific progress and at the same time contribute meaningfully to the understanding of climate change and its impact in Bhutan and across the globe.

Innovation
In this project, students use a mobile application called ‚Heroes‘ to record their daily plant observations, capture their location, take images and submit the data to an online data repository. Each school manages and owns the online data repository from where they can download data, do analyses and see yearly variations in the plants’ lifecycles. This database is also accessible to the general public through an online portal.