Abstract:

The “Embracing the Sustainable Development Goals through Creative Arts” Erasmus + project addresses the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focusing on three in particular: #14 Life Below Water- to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development, #4 Quality Education- to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, and #5 Gender Equality- to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girl. All of this will be achieved through three Creative Art forms; Digital Games, Storytelling and Dance in order to raise awareness of these global issues through innovative methods of learning whilst in an informal environment. This paper will focus on the developed games that are free to play online at http://www.csdg.eu/. Within the scope of the project, five mini-games were developed. Two by the University of Malta and three by the Austrian Picapipe GmbH. Each of these mini-games takes a different approach in terms of topic, game design perspective and audiences. In this paper, these different playful approaches are presented, critically evaluated, areas of application identified and ideas for further development presented.

Keywords:

SDGs, Education, Digital Games, Sustainable Development, Gender Equality.