Abstract:

JEU: Let’s play together for the European Union is a project financed by Erasmus+ under contract n.º 2019 - 1 - FR01 - KA201 – 062510. The project, created by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) and Higher Education Institutions (HEI) from seven European countries, aims to contribute to the creation of a more inclusive and respectful European society by raising the awareness and empowerment of youth and their teachers to European citizenship, gender equality and environmental protection. Over a three-year period, two serious games were developed for middle-school and high-school pupils. The games were tested in classrooms in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Poland, and Germany.

The project, started in October 2019, was impacted by the SARS-COV-2 virus and resulting COVID-19 pandemic. The consecutive lockdowns imposed throughout Europe made it impossible to organize some of the planned activities. However, the easing of travel restrictions in most European countries from late 2021 meant that one of the planned mobilities, for Porto, was possible in January 2022. 42 students and 14 staff members from the participating organizations gathered in Porto for ten days of intensive game development. Prior to the Porto mobility, the NGOs presented a series of online sessions to prepare the students on the specific topics they would be working at. In Porto, students were teamed in multicultural and interdisciplinary groups. Each group was supervised by a staff member from one of the participating organizations. A technical expert, a content expert, and an educational expert were also present to help the students. Each group was tasked with coming up with a serious game on one of the three topics: fighting extremism; plastic soup; and gender discrimination in public spaces. The best game concept, as selected by an independent jury, will be developed by the consortium to become a complete educational tool for high-school students.

At the end of the mobility, a survey to the participating students and staff was conducted. The objective of the survey was to evaluate the mobility. The aspects to be valued were the quality of the technical and content specific workshops/seminars before the physical mobility took place, the mobility itself and the educational experience in which the HEI students took part. This paper reports on our findings.

Keywords:

Serious Game, Citizenship, Active Learning.