The small Carbon Footprint Game – Set A or B)

Our small carbon footprint game has been designed to be more accessible and compact for mainstream educators. For those who cannot afford the BIG game version we’ve reduced down the size and removed the large cardboard infographic wall so you can play with just the cards.

All of our games are for those who wish to find a different way to educate about the climate crisis and carbon footprints. You could be a primary or secondary teacher, a trainer, facilitator or environmental educator at a charity.

You don’t need to have any prior knowledge of carbon footprints to play the game with others. All you need is a willingness to learn and read the ‘How Bad are Bananas?’ book as well as some facilitation experience or confidence (if you’re low on experience or confidence, our games have been shown to help facilitators develop both).

In our small games, we’ve split the cards into 2 different sets (A & B) and more sets will be released soon. You can buy just 1 set or 2 dependent on your budget. We’ve put some of our most popular card comparisons into each set.

Set A in particular is for younger audiences (it does not have age dependent references in it e.g. alcohol). With every set buy you will receive 1x user licence to access ‘The Carbon Academy’ which helps you to learn at your own pace how to confidently and effectively facilitate the game with your own players.

You will need 3 hours+ to work through The Carbon Academy although we signpost you to plenty of further reading and learning to help you be an even better game facilitator. Whilst the Carbon Academy, helps to set the scene on the climate crisis, the main focus is on helping you to become a confident and skilled facilitator of the Carbon Footprint games.

With every small game set purchased, you receive:

• 40x durable playing cards printed on 100% recycled and recyclable board
• 1x Higher/Lower strutted showcard so you can play upright on a table
• 1x ‘How Bad are Bananas?’ The Carbon Footprint of Everything book (2020 edition) by Prof Mike Berners-Lee
• 1x user licence for ‘The Carbon Academy’ to give you online support to teach you how to play with others for best effect

Delivering messages, teaching new things and trying to change behaviours is a continuous battle.

But, what if it didn’t need to be…

The Small Carbon Footprint game brings the ‘wow’ back into learning and excitement into engaging with people. The game encourages and creates a connection with your learners that far too often other learning methods ignore.

By having cards in the game that represent everyday items that everyone has consumed (food, shoes, clothes, tech, cars) learners can identify and are able to resonate with the messages the game teaches. The critical thinking learners can develop has the ability (in some of them) to provide the first gateway into the world of sustainability and climate action. Everybody leaves having learnt something new and most people are shocked by the things the game can show them and many wish to go on to act on what they’ve learnt.

The game is straightforward and easy to use and the Carbon Academy provides the facilitation training and learning necessary to play with your users straight away and we feel there is no better way for you to perfect your facilitation skills than play with learners straight away.

Anyone and everyone! Your pupils, students, staff, suppliers, customers, C-suite, managers, general public, small and large businesses.
Show that you understand climate change and show how important engagement and learning is to all of your stakeholders.

Yes you can, but not through the online shop – please contact us to quote you with the shipping costs included.

Unfortunately, yes it is possible to play the game badly and that’s why we put the Carbon Academy together to help you learn the best techniques for playing the game with others. We do find that there is no other learning like having a go at playing with others.

“A really easy low pressure way to get you thinking about how your actions and choices can impact the planet and how you can start to change your behaviours to make a difference on an individual level- loved playing it!”

“It made me think differently”

“I learnt way more than I knew”

“Great – very revealing! Very informative”

“… it was a huge hit. We had far more engagement than we usually do and it’s all because of the game”

“Wow. Emmas presentation has made me rethink everything”

“This game should be played in schools across the country. World even!”

“Mind blown 🤯”

“I think everyone needs to play it”

Unique
There is no other game like this on the market.

Sector leading research
Mike’s book ‘How Bad are Bananas?’ underpins all data used in the game and is the most up-to-date compendium of carbon footprint research in the UK.

Expert facilitators
We have our 6 years of game facilitation experience to share with you and when your facilitation is right, the game will ‘wow’ your audiences into engaging with your sustainability or climate action initiatives.

Accessible learning style
Our games are unique because they help the user to personally identify with the issues rather than coming to the learning out of context. This style of learning makes for a more accessible and fun approach which has a lasting effect on the learner.

Research has shown that children can recall far better details of games they have played than most formal learning they receive. Using games as a way of learning works very effectively as they engage players in multiple different ways simultaneously.

As Kolb (1984) outlined in his theory of experiential learning, we all learn in multiple different ways (active learning, planning, theorising, reflection) and games are very good at engaging multiple learning capacities simultaneously. Marketeers know that we love receiving prizes, recognition, badges and rewards for doing (or not doing!) stuff. This trend for gamification has taken off and is now all around us!

The only way our game is different is that it’s a game NOT JUST gamified learning. By building on societies love of games, we aim to create even more intrinsic motivation for people to engage with the game than just the extrinsic motivation to collect rewards.

MORE CARDS?
If you want all the playing cards available then purchasing Sets A & B together will give you enough cards to theme games by food & drink, travel, waste, water, construction/housing, ‘stuff’ and solutions. 

PRIMARY AGE APPROPRIATE?
Set A is more appropriate for primary age groups (UK – Year 5+).  

DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE?
If you want to learn more about climate change to support your facilitation of the game then throw in a voucher for a 1 day face-to-face or an online Carbon Literacy course to help develop your confidence.

LIMITED BUDGET?
If you have a limited budget, but you need support to play the game, buy one small game and a voucher for a Carbon Literacy course.

From the selected pack of cards, players are invited to compare 5 paired items, and in each pair guess which item has the higher carbon footprint. Sometimes it’s easy (an eco-child vs an average child) sometimes it’s pretty tricky (the papertowel vs. the hand-dryer) and sometimes it can be a very random pairing (a pair of jeans vs. 1 kg of organic, vine-grown cherry tomatoes from the UK).

The comparisons are designed to get players thinking about where items come from, what makes up their carbon footprint and encourages them to use their own experiences of the world to reach an answer. The skill is in the delivery of the facilitator, and we have ALL the support you might need (the Carbon Academy AND Carbon Literacy courses) to become a GREAT facilitator of the game.