The Pamplona City Council launched a new tool to educate primary school pupils about energy and to encourage them to become Action Groups against Energy Waste through a game-based project. This initiative is part of the ‘Go Green Pamplona’ project, and the STARDUST project as the city seeks to complete its development of their Energy Transition and Climate Change Strategy by 2030. Its mechanics have been explained at a press conference on 9th February by Councillor Fermín Alonso.
The gaming tool was designed by the staff of the Environmental Education unit and the company expert on gaming Oui Play. Made available both in Spanish and in Basque, its aim is to stimulate a behavioural change among students from 5th and 6th of Primary Education (10-12 years old) towards a more sustainable way of life with lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The primary school pupils will be learning proactively through the tool’s challenges, levels of progress and rewards. A video has been prepared to invite students in taking part of this initiative together with their teachers. The City Council will offer Pamplona schools the opportunity to participate in the initiative in the context of an educational project. In the process, the tool will be available for free for all the schools in the city.
Discovering the school’s energy habits and modifying them
In order to develop the Action Groups against Energy Waste, teams will be set up to discover the school’s energy use habits by carrying out an energy diagnosis. At the end of the training, they will have the capacity to develop a proposal aimed at motivating behavioural changes within the educational community and thus provide an impact on energy saving and efficiency in the school.
Level up by completing challenges with videos and flashcards
The progress of the game has been designed in the form of modules and have been categorised to three levels. Each module has its own content; it has also activities that students must complete, using rules and code, in order to progress. This will unlock the next activities and modules.
In Level 1, ‘Energy’, basic knowledge is to be acquired with the support of five videos and a didactic sheet where pupils identify the uses of energy in the school. As for Level 2, the modules are focused on ‘Energy management’. It deals with the problems and possible solutions in the field of energy management. Three activities are to be carried out, including the viewing of two videos and the preparation of a worksheet on energy resources in the world. At this point, students become Energy Management Technicians (TAE). Finally, Level 3 also known as, Action Plan against Energy Waste, will arrive in the school and the challenge ends when it is published on the website. In this way, those who have participated become an ‘Action Group against Energy Waste’.
The gaming tool is free to use and is supported by the Action Against Energy Waste. The website has a public part and a restricted access for each classroom participating in the programme. The duration of the educational experience if of between 10 and 20 teaching hours. Once registered, together with the passwords, a teacher’s guide is provided which explains the procedure step by step. In total there are 8 videos, 6 teaching sheets, the action plan and the teacher’s guide.
Educational project ‘Action against Energy Waste’
The Environmental Education unit of Pamplona City Council will launch the ‘Action Against Energy Waste’ educational project for Pamplona schools, based on the use of the gaming tool, in two phases. This school year, the gaming tool will be tested with a pilot school, which will be selected by a public call for applications. The selected school will receive a small material contribution to undertake some of the energy saving measures that have been assessed as effective in the school by the participating students. Once the test has been carried out, a new public call will be made to select schools in Pamplona that wish to participate in the project in the next school year 2021/22.
The selected schools will be monitored by the Environmental Education unit to verify the energy savings and the measures taken in the schools towards an energy transition. Likewise, within the project, the City Council will undertake to facilitate this energy transition for the schools, taking into account their energy savings.
In addition to the schools that participate in the monitoring by the Environmental Education unit, the tool will be available for free by any school that wants to work on the curricular contents of energy, climate change and energy transition.
