by Gyula Gabor Toth
How can the currently rising „smart” generation solve problems generated today, without even knowing about their existence? Are the grown-ups of today aware of the nature of these problems at all? If we asked people in the street whether they know what climate change is or what climate at all means, would we receive meaningful answers? As part of my collaboration in a Climate KIC/Mindspace project, these questions were asked in a general survey.
The results showed that the general answer was no – and this was worthy of consideration. We took inspiration from these results among others for creating a game that explains the essence of climate change to children. With the support of Mindspace we developed two simple games serving as the pioneers of the Climate KIC Programme. The first game builds upon the figures of TV weather forecasts like the sun, cloud, snow etc. through which children can gain a better understanding of the phenomena of the changing climate.
The other game is an agility game in which the children need to get the black balls symbolizing carbon-dioxide into the appropriate holes representing CO2 absorbing plants. However, there are „false” holes too that need to be avoided: these symbolize the clouds or the atmosphere, where most of the CO2 emitted from chimneys and exhaust pipes goes to. You can find further details on the programme and the games on the website of Mindspace.
