Forward Education Setting Out to Make Climate Education Mainstream

We have some exciting news and wanted you to be the first to hear it!

Over the past year, the InkSmith team has been hard at work completely redeveloping our popular Climate Action Kit. We'll be releasing this new version through a new Canadian edtech startup named Forward Education (Forward EDU).

Forward EDU is setting out to make climate change education mainstream with the new Climate Action Kits for teaching coding and robotics in K-12 classrooms. The kits help students and educators understand and create prototypes of real-world technology solutions to climate change issues while advancing STEM education.

Forward EDU’s Climate Action Kits make the process of teaching and learning coding easy, exciting and purposeful for students and teachers alike. Using the online interactive lessons, students are introduced to a variety of climate change issues and their technological solutions. Students then use the kit’s hardware, building blocks, and physical computing components to code and build their own working prototypes by following step-by-step coding tutorials. These projects can be as simple as creating a windmill for renewable energy or as challenging as building an automated tree seeding vehicle to combat deforestation.

Powered by the BBC micro:bit and Microsoft’s MakeCode software, the Forward EDU team has developed a learning system for coding and robotics unlike anything else on the market today. Teachers with no prior experience can pick up a kit and start teaching in their classrooms tomorrow – it’s remarkably simple for something that can seem so daunting.

Forward EDU will officially launch its Climate Action Kits at the ISTELIVE ‘23 education technology conference in Philadelphia in June where the team hopes to bring coding and climate action education together in the US and around the world.

The Forward Education team believes that by teaching these skills and contextualizing STEM with real-world climate action opportunities, teachers can give students hope for the future and inspire them to be tomorrow’s change-makers.

A few important things to note:

• InkSmith will still be the same company you know and love!
• The existing Climate Action Kits will continue to be supported through InkSmith —the NEW upgraded version will be available under the Forward Education brand on InkSmith.ca
• You can contact your Learning Solutions Specialist with any questions you have!