Learning about environmental issues through programming

The Ecological IT Quest (Ukraine) was conducted on the platform https://www.badgecraft.eu/ for one week, 19—25 October 2020. Participants had to complete 14 diverse tasks. All tasks were related to the environmental issues and to complete them, participants had to master and to apply different IT skills in coding, design, online communication, digital marketing, project planning, and usage of the online tools which IT specialists commonly use in their work.

For example, they had to create either of these:

• create a website where they invite their classmates to join an outdoor cleaning event
• design a picture and write a short text for a social media post where they promote an important environmental issue
• create a video explaining how to sort garbage and download it to the chosen cloud service
• complete one module on coding on the online educational platform and write their first program with the environmental motto
• measure own ecological footprint using a special online tool and write future steps on how to decrease it.

Each task was accompanied by educational explanations of the method/technology that had to be used to perform it.

84 participants from Sumy and Sumy Region, mostly 12—13 years old, took part in the quest. Those who completed all the tasks the fastest received prizes from organizers.

The event received very positive feedback from participants. They mentioned that they learned a lot and that it was an interesting and engaging pastime.

During the virtual Meet and Code Awards ceremony on March 16th, 2021, Ukrainian project was chosen as a winner of Code for the Planet category. Congratulations!