31 March 2023

Nordhausen (HSN): Games for Goals - Thuringian teachers and students at Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences are working with European partners to develop games on sustainability for primary schools.

Image(s) caption: Games for Goals - Workshop Photos: Dik Bol

At the end of February, teachers from European primary schools were invited to a workshop in Poitiers, France, to discuss ideas for educational games on various topics relating to a sustainable world.

The workshop itself is part of the "Games for Goals" project, which runs from 2022 to 2025 and is funded by the European Union. "With this project, we want to support teachers in European primary schools in using innovative teaching materials about the challenges facing our planet," says the project coordinator for the German partners, Friedrich Ederer. Seven partner organisations from Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, led by the French NGO "Le Partenariat", have come together to achieve this goal.

In order to sensitise children in primary schools to sustainability goals, the partners in this project have decided on three central pillars. Teachers will be able to use a method to create their own innovative materials on new teaching topics. In addition, there is already a wide range of teaching materials available, which are now to be compiled in a European catalogue for primary schools as part of the project. "We have to bear in mind that the materials should be free of charge in order to be accessible to all schools in Europe," says Ederer.

Following on from this, he says, "That's why we also want to develop materials ourselves with our partners. This pillar of our project supports the idea of sustainability, that solutions for change should be developed by everyone involved. We therefore wanted to have the teachers on board for Games for Goals right from the start. Thankfully, we received a lot of encouragement from primary schools in Thuringia and were able to get four teachers on board for the start." The primary schools participating so far are the Evangelische Grundschule Nordhausen, the Grundschule Berthold Brecht Nordhausen and the Evangelische Grundschule Erfurt.

Water, biodiversity and inclusion

To kick off the project in February, primary school teachers from the participating countries were invited to contribute their experiences and ideas. They were welcomed by the French NGO "KuriOz" (French: curieux = curious) in Poitiers, which is active in educational work on social issues.

For this workshop, Apolline Bouin from KuriOz had prepared a series of games dealing with various topics such as water, distributive justice and biodiversity. Some of these games were even specially developed by the NGO in other projects. The participants were able to gain various insights, ranging from game principles and elements of innovative games to the integration of games into their lessons.

In subsequent intensive discussions, the teachers were able to work out three topics for the project based on the curricula and their knowledge of their pupils' abilities. These focal points on water cycles, biodiversity and inclusion represent the common denominator of the European partners, as they relate to the children's everyday lives and active action is directly recognisable.

In order to enable primary schools to have a stimulating discussion on these topics in the classroom, students from the partner universities will take up the cause of developing games together. All primary schools can then download these free of charge in their classes, try them out and develop them further with us.

The first of these three meetings will take place in Porto, Portugal, in May this year with 32 international students. Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences has already put together a team for this and will be sending ten students from all faculties.