Written by Kyriaki Papayatzoglou
This article presents the Educator’s Toolkit developed as part of GameComp, a 28-month Erasmus+ Youth Partnership (2024–2026), co-funded by the European Union. The project brings together five partner organizations from Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain, and France, with the common goal of strengthening the capacity of youth workers and educators to support young people in the process of the green transition.
The Toolkit serves as the project’s central implementation guide and provides youth workers with a structured, adaptable pathway for integrating game-based learning and the development of sustainability skills into non-formal education settings. Based on the European GreenComp framework—which identifies 12 key sustainability competencies—the Toolkit combines three interconnected tools: an Assessment Tool with gamification elements, a collection of 60 Workshop Scenarios, and a library of 60 Educational Games. These tools were designed to be used as a cohesive educational journey rather than as isolated activities, supporting trainers in guiding participants from awareness to action.
The Toolkit’s key contribution is its practical, trainer-oriented approach. Instead of theoretical frameworks, it offers ready-made session plans, facilitation principles, guidelines for adapting to different contexts (online, low-tech, intercultural, and outdoor settings), as well as real-world implementation examples from all partner countries. The article describes the Toolkit’s design rationale, the recommended session flow, and key findings from the pilot implementation in youth centers, employability programs, VET schools, and non-formal education settings in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece.
Field results indicate that game-based learning, when combined with structured debriefing (debrief) and explicit linking to competencies, is an effective and engaging approach for developing GreenComp competencies in young people aged 12–30. Trainers reported high participant engagement, particularly when the assessment tool was used to personalize the learning path and when the game was reframed from competition to collaborative exploration.
The Toolkit, along with all project resources, is freely available at gamecomp.eu under an open-access license, allowing educators outside the consortium to replicate and adapt the approach to their own context.
