Designed to Learn: Creating environmental board games with children

This talk, delivered by two Ulster University academics, will showcase the Future Island-Island project and explain their delivery of hands-on creative workshops to children aged 9-11 years old (Key Stage 2).

During these design-led workshops, children dive into the world of storytelling through the immersive lens of board game design. Using character cards, from The Extraordinaires Design Studio framework, to address how environmental impacts (e.g., marine plastic waste, habitat loss and land pollution) affect these characters, children learn about critical issues while creating imaginative and extraordinary games in a collaborative setting.

This talk will involve an overview of the children’s creative workshops, the project’s methodology, partners and showcase some designs and learnings taken from these sessions. Key insights also relate to understanding how children learn about otherwise abstract and difficult topics, the impacts and the benefits of design-led learning, and the power of creativity in all forms.

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Host or Publisher Belfast Design Week