A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. During the intensive week in Estonia participants main task was to create environmental educational games as doing something for someone is teaching also creators.
To get the ideas for the games and to get also some new knowledges participants had several study trip on the topic discussion/workshop on the topic “My future, my planet“.
During the intensive week in Estonia the focus was also to increase the young people to become more conscious about the local communities and their development and entrepreneurship and well as an important factor for the development. All workshops were related to ecosystem services introduction. For that the agenda included several community-based workshops where participants became more visible and active in their own communities and realized small projects for community development related e.g. to environment protection or enhancing options for sport, cultural or entrepreneurial activities. For example environmental education included canoeing on the Võhandu river to Räpina – studying local ecosystem services and trash collecting action from the river, getting to know more about local life and entrepreneurship and participation in the workshops in Räpina Creative House (creative art workshops – ceramic and class art workshops, as creativity, is a factor that increases viability). Also, study visit to the region on the topic “My future, my planet” – Our green future in the rural area. The study trip included workshops and visiting Mooste manor and different local entrepreneurs who are leading the rural life and entrepreneurship in the Mooste manor area. Also participants had an environmental educational study visit to Taevaskoja “My future, my planet“ to see the value of the nature and the relation with ecosystem services . And workshop with local partners about ecological living on the topic “Our green future” – opportunities living in the countryside in a sustainable way that was leaded by Old Hinniala farm.
Creating environmental games consists of III workshops.
Workshop I included „Small scale project“ – environmental educational games:
- Forming working groups. Message, what is worrying in our life.
- Failures and new ideas coming up. Light brainstorming. First feedback to the ideas.
- Ideas development / steal and make it better.
Workshop II included games idea development and sharing / Creating and developing the environmental games. Participants got to know more about games parts, rules, creating game concept notes.
“Small project” workshop III was about creating prototype – testing in their own group and feedback from other teams.
Resources:
https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/39414829.pdf
file:///C:/Users/ojaso/AppData/Local/Temp/leiko_luhamaa.pdf
https://hev.edu.ee/get/591/Strebeleva+Laste+arendamine.pdf
Gaming Green: The Educational Potential of Eco – A Digital Simulated Ecosystem. Fjællingsdal K. S. and Klöckner, A. C. 2019. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02846/full
Ederi Ojasoo