On November 8, 2024, the international consortium of the GAME4CHANGE project – Digital Serious Games for Climate Change Education – held its inaugural online meeting. Funded under the Erasmus+ KA220-HED Programme, this initiative aims to develop digital educational games to enhance climate change education.

The meeting commenced with partner introductions, where each organization outlined its role within the project. Discussions then focused on organizational matters, including plans for the first in-person meeting scheduled for February 13-14, 2025, at Harokopio University of Athens. The consortium also deliberated on collaboration tools, financial aspects, and agreements, concluding with an outline of immediate actions and timelines for upcoming project milestones.

GAME4CHANGE addresses the pressing need for universities to modernize teaching methods, especially in non-technical fields such as humanities and environmental studies. By integrating “serious games” into curricula, the project seeks to connect higher education with real-world issues like climate change, thereby increasing student engagement and improving learning outcomes.

Key Objectives of GAME4CHANGE:

• Equip university staff in environmental sciences with tools and strategies to incorporate digital games and gamification into their teaching.
• Develop and pilot gamified lessons for environmental education by adapting existing materials.
• Engage students in creating, testing, and evaluating gamified courses on environmental topics.
• Use digital games to involve all students, including vulnerable groups, in real-world environmental issues.
• Create innovative, adaptable learning tools as a foundation for future postgraduate courses on environmental and climate change topics.
• Establish a European network for sharing gamified teaching methods and resources for climate education.

The project is coordinated by the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria (Portugal) and includes consortium partners from 5 other European countries: Xenios Polis Culture, Science and Action (Greece), LIM Srl Unipersonale (Italy), Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland), ATERMON B.V. (the Netherlands), and Harokopio University of Athens (Greece).

With €250,000 in funding from the European Union, GAME4CHANGE is set to run from November 1, 2024, to October 31, 2026. The consortium is committed to the project’s success and looks forward to ongoing collaboration to advance environmental education through innovative digital solutions.