Challenge
In 2023, it became a requirement for Denmark to sort its waste into different types so that as much as possible can be recycled in the future. Kolding Municipality's renovation department, Redux, felt that it could be difficult for people to fully understand how the waste should be sorted. That's why they decided to train the municipality's school students to be the waste experts of the future.
How can children learn to sort waste in a way that is fun and learning at the same time?
Process and solution
Project manager Kristine Irene Knudsen knew from the start that this task was best solved by applying the design process. The task required systematic stakeholder involvement, deliberate open and close processes, and thorough testing of the ideas.
Redux has developed the game in collaboration with the municipality's schools, where both teacher and pupils have been involved. In addition, they have allied themselves with a game designer and a graphic artist to be sure to finish well.
Redux prioritized involving students and teacher in three phases.
For the first time, in May 2022, they held interviews and idea selection with teachers and 28 students from two of the municipality's schools. Here an idea of a game arose so that the training for waste experts could be done through a playful and learning process.
In September 2022, Redux and a group of students squabbled over the next stage, where the game itself was developed. Here, the students developed their own superheroes and came up with three challenges that the superheroes could solve using garbage.
In the winter and spring of 2023, the turn came to test the game and its subelements incooperation with the school students. It became a series of tests with active students and teachers testing material for the game, solving puzzles and giving feedback on the game.
The result is the game Aloria, where the two space dwellers Alex and Azra must be helped by the class's students to sort out all the debris on their home planet Aloria. The game combines movement, body and brain. The course extends over several lessons and ends with students playing an escape game where they have to solve mysteries and puzzles
Aloria has its own website: Aloria.dk. Here you can find films, inspiration for teaching, etc.
Results
Project manager Kristine Irene Knudsen says that initially the plan was for them to create a board game, but that the involvement of students and teachers opened up some other ideas, which gave a completely different result.
The game has been available since 2023 to all the schools in the municipality at the central warehouse, and is a mandatory part of the educational course in the 4th grade.
This corresponds to the fact that about 30% of all schoolchildren in Kolding today have had the opportunity to be trained as waste experts.
