Community Impact Climate Action Lab
Co-designing sustainable food futures and climate action through participatory innovation.
- Role: Project Lead & Design
- Partners: Georgian College – Hospitality, Tourism, and Recreation | Colleges and Institutes Canada | RegeneratingToronto
- Timeline: 1 Year
Context
The Community Impact Climate Action Lab (CAL) was created to address the gap between food sustainability practices and broader climate action in education and communities. While individual efforts (like composting or local sourcing) were happening within Georgian College’s Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation (HTR) programs, there was no unified system for tracking impact or engaging the wider community. CAL brought together students, faculty, farmers, chefs, and policymakers to co-design practical, scalable solutions.
This project combined foresight, systemic design, and participatory workshops to explore barriers, identify opportunities, and prototype tools that could make food sustainability more visible, measurable, and actionable.
Quick Facts
- 1 food systems game designed & tested to improve youth food literacy
- 3 emissions dashboard prototypes scoped with CS students
- Sector: Education, Sustainability, Community Development
- Focus Areas: food systems, sustainability, and climate resilience
- Methods: Foresight, Systems Thinking, Co-Design Workshops, Game-Based Learning, Interactive Prototyping, Experiential Learning
My Role
- Project Lead for design facilitation, data visualization, and prototype development.
- Applied systemic design tools (iterative inquiry, CLA) to map barriers and future opportunities.
- Designed and iterated an educational food-climate action game with students and partners.
- Led community consultations and testing sessions, translating insights into blueprints and prototypes.
- Collaborated with student developers to scope and guide the creation of a food emissions dashboard
Research and Insights
Our research revealed several recurring themes that shaped the direction of the Climate Action Lab. These insights highlight both the opportunities and barriers communities face in driving meaningful, local climate action.
Key Insights
- Food systems emerged as a key entry point for local climate action and resilience.
- Community leaders need stronger climate literacy to scale their existing organizing strengths.
- Engaging youth and older community members led to more holistic, long-term solutions.
- Funding silos, policy gaps, and inequities hindered wider climate action.
- Local experiments can be replicated into broader regional and national initiatives.
Concepts & Prototypes
- Co-Design Workshops engaged cross-sector participants, including students, faculty, farmers, and policy leaders, to ideate and test possible solutions.
- Game-Based Prototyping developed and tested a food systems game that enhanced youth food literacy while encouraging systems-level thinking.
- Interactive Prototyping involved the early development of an emissions dashboard with Computer Studies students to track and visualize the climate impacts of food choices.
- Foresight and Trend Scanning explored how food systems intersect with long-term climate challenges, identifying future risks and opportunities.
Outcomes & Impact
30+ cross-sector participants
engaged (farmers, policymakers, educators, climate activists).
3+ workshops
applying systemic design and foresight frameworks.
1 Game Prototype
interactive tool to teach youth food literacy and sustainability.
3 Capstone Project Prototypes
for tracking Georgian College’s food-based carbon footprint.
This project demonstrates how design, foresight, and collaboration can drive sustainable change at both institutional and community levels.
Food Systems Game
One of the most impactful prototypes to emerge from the Climate Action Lab was a game designed to enhance youth food literacy and systems thinking. The game offered an interactive, hands-on approach to exploring the connections between food choices, climate impacts, local economies, and community well-being.
- The game was co-created with students, faculty, and community partners, ensuring it reflected real-world challenges and opportunities in food systems.
- Playtesting sessions allowed participants to experiment with trade-offs, collaboration, and decision-making, making complex sustainability issues accessible and engaging.
- The prototype demonstrated how serious play and game-based learning can be leveraged to foster climate awareness and empower youth to think in systems.
By utilizing gameplay as a tool, the Climate Action Lab created a low-stakes environment where players could safely test strategies, reflect on the consequences, and envision more sustainable futures.
Iterating & Testing the Game
The Climate Action Lab game underwent multiple rounds of iteration, progressing from early digital prototypes to physical versions that could be tested with players in real-world settings. Playtesting sessions were hosted at campus events and workshops, where diverse groups—including students, faculty, and community partners—engaged directly with the game mechanics.
These sessions created space to observe how players interacted with rules, negotiated trade-offs, and connected food choices to climate impacts. Feedback from players was gathered in real-time and used to refine gameplay elements, including adjustments to carbon scoring systems and streamlining pantry rules.
Benefits of User Testing
- Surface player insights on what made climate-food trade-offs engaging, confusing, or impactful.
- Refine rules and scoring to strike a balance between complexity and accessibility for youth and community audiences.
- Validate learning outcomes to ensure the game fosters systems thinking, collaboration, and awareness of sustainable food practices.
- Embed iteration cycles into the design process, reinforcing foresight and co-design methods with tangible, user-centred evidence.
The iterative playtesting phase not only improved the game but also served as a participatory research method, allowing the Lab to gather community perspectives while co-developing tools for climate literacy.
Next Steps
Building on the insights from iterative playtesting, the Climate Action Lab is positioned to further refine the game as both a teaching tool and a community engagement resource. Future steps include digitizing the prototype for broader accessibility, integrating advanced climate data into gameplay mechanics, and expanding partnerships with schools and community organizations to scale its reach.
The ongoing development highlights the game’s dual role: not only as an educational platform that fosters systems thinking and climate literacy, but also as a living prototype that continues to evolve through collaboration, feedback, and foresight-driven experimentation.
