By Kemi Oyesola
Designing an educational experience is rarely a straight line.
Behind every seemingly simple activity are questions about the learners, the learning objectives, the context in which the experience will be used, and the practical constraints of the people expected to facilitate it. There are also many conversations, iterations, adjustments, and moments where an idea that looks good on paper needs to be reconsidered once it meets practice. This has very much been the journey behind NEUROCLIMA Play.
We are pleased to be privileged to share the design journey in our paper titled, “Designing Adaptable Playful Experiences for Climate Engagement: Lessons from the NEUROCLIMA Play Ecosystem,” at the European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL) 2026.
The paper reflects on the design of the NEUROCLIMA Play ecosystem, which includes a suite of interactive learning modules and ClimateQuest, a board game developed to support climate literacy through playful learning experiences.
Designing for a complex topic
Climate adaptation is not an easy subject to translate into playful experiences. It brings together scientific knowledge, environmental risks, human behaviour, social choices, and community responses. At the same time, the people engaging with these topics can differ considerably in age, prior knowledge, interests, and learning contexts.
Within NEUROCLIMA Play, six interactive modules were developed around themes including agro-food, energy, water, disinformation, forest fires, and behavioural change, with content targeted to different learner groups. The challenge was therefore not simply to make climate content more entertaining. It was to think carefully about how playful experiences could make complex issues more approachable while still preserving their educational value.
This meant continually balancing several design considerations: scientific accuracy and playfulness, structure and flexibility, individual learning and collaborative participation, as well as digital interaction and physical play configuration.
From digital learning to shared conversation
The interactive modules provide opportunities for learners to explore climate-related topics through multimedia content, activities, and knowledge checks. ClimateQuest extends that experience into a shared social space. Through the ClimateQuest board game trivia questions, challenge cards, discussion, and collaborative play, learners are encouraged to also engage with climate topics together individually and collectively.
Designing for adaptability
Another important lesson from the work was the need to design for the realities of educators and facilitators. A teacher may have a limited amount of classroom time, a large group of learners, and little preparation time. A youth worker may be facilitating a voluntary community activity with participants who have very different levels of climate knowledge. Another facilitator may have limited access to digital devices.
For this reason, adaptability became an important consideration within the NEUROCLIMA Play ecosystem. ClimateQuest can be played in different modes, individually or in teams, with or without the module-based challenge cards. Facilitators are also provided with supporting guides and editable card templates that allow the experience to be adjusted to different learning objectives and contexts.
The intention is not to prescribe one perfect way of using the toolkit, but to give educators and facilitators enough structure to get started while leaving room for them to respond to their own learners and environments.
Transforming Project Learning into Shared Knowledge
One of the important roles of research and innovation projects is not only to develop new tools and approaches, but also to document and share the knowledge generated through their development.
Designing NEUROCLIMA Play involved numerous decisions around audience needs, scientific accuracy, accessibility, adaptability, facilitation, and the relationship between digital and physical learning experiences. Capturing these decisions and presenting this work at ECGBL 2026 gives us an opportunity to contribute those insights to the wider game-based learning community, while also learning from researchers and practitioners working on similar challenges.
NEUROCLIMA Play has been shaped by many people along the way. The modules and board game reflect the ideas, expertise, feedback, and collaboration of colleagues and partners across the NEUROCLIMA project. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to the development process, tested ideas, challenged assumptions, and helped refine the experience.
The paper is a reflection on the lessons that emerged along the way. We look forward to sharing those lessons at ECGBL 2026 and continuing the conversation about how playful learning can help make climate literacy more engaging, participatory and meaningful.
