Educating School Children on Urban Planning & Sustainable Cities
In partnership with Save the Children, Cities Forum is developing teaching modules on sustainable urban planning for schools across India, in an initiative that plants the ideas of good city-making in the next generation.
Year: 2024–2025 | Client: Save the Children (partner) | Country: India (Bihar & Delhi pilots)
In partnership with Save the Children, Cities Forum is developing teaching modules on sustainable urban planning for schools across India, in an initiative that plants the ideas of good city-making in the next generation. The cities of tomorrow will be shaped by today's children; equipping them early with an understanding of sustainable, inclusive and healthy urban environments is one of the most far-sighted investments a society can make, and this programme brings that ambition into the classroom at scale.
Our approach
The assignment centres on the creation of engaging, age-appropriate teaching modules that introduce school children to the principles of sustainable urban planning, how cities work, how mobility, environment, public space and community fit together, and how thoughtful planning can make places healthier, fairer and more liveable. Recognising that materials alone do not change classrooms, Cities Forum pairs the modules with teacher training, so that educators are confident and equipped to bring these concepts to life, and with pilot implementation in the states of Bihar and Delhi, allowing the approach to be tested and refined in real, contrasting settings before wider roll-out.
What we delivered
The ambition is deliberately large. The programme aims to reach more than 10,000 schools across India, embedding sustainable-cities education into the learning of a vast number of young people. Achieving this requires materials and methods that are not only pedagogically sound but scalable and adaptable across India's diverse educational landscape, a design challenge the pilots in Bihar and Delhi are intended to address, generating the evidence and refinements needed to expand with confidence.
Impact
By working with Save the Children to bring sustainable urban planning into schools, Cities Forum extends its mission beyond consulting and infrastructure into education and long-term culture change. The initiative reflects a conviction that better cities depend not only on plans and investments but on an informed, engaged citizenry, and it positions Cities Forum as a partner willing to invest in the awareness and capability of the young people who will inherit, and remake, India's urban future.
