School children playing a bean-based boardgame

Overview

Games offer a fun approach to talk about complex topics and problems. Involving key stakeholders (including schoolchildren) in their design ensures games are relevant and engaging to the target group, while offering an opportunity for children to learn more about the journey of beans from farm to fork in the food system. 
This part of the BeanMeals project assessed the impact of playing a codesigned game with primary school children on their willingness to eat bean-based meals. Game co-design formed part of a range of school-based activities, including tasting sessions and educational materials.

People involved

The BeanMeals project team includes researchers from different disciplines with expertise in food systems, agroeconomics, systemic innovation, food policy, legume breeding, public health, and behaviour change, as well as project partners Food for Life, local city and county councils, and a game designer. To co-design the bean-themed game, the game designer also worked alongside:
  • 200 schoolchildren (Key Stage 2) attending the Eco-Schools Roadshow in Leicester.
  • Year 5 primary school children at six schools in the Leicestershire area.
Bean boardgame
Bag of beans for a boardgame
Children playing bean boardgame

Key project activities

1. Consultation with school science leads
To identify curriculum requirements of BeanMeals game-design activities.
2. Consultation with a psychologist
To discuss feeding behaviour research and identify key strategies that could be used in games to promote eating beans in children.
3. Workshop activities at the Eco-Schools Roadshow
Activities were facilitated by the game designer and a project team partner from Food for Life, and included design of a timeline mural of the bean’s farm to fork journey, and a session for children to design their own bean-themed games. 
4. Game prototyping
The game designer created multiple prototypes based on children’s ideas.
5. Playtesting
Game prototypes were playtested by Year 5 schoolchildren.
6. Meeting with the project team
The game designer met individually with multi-disciplinary project team members to gather reactions to game prototypes and identify key messages (e.g., nutrition and health, sustainability) to include.
7. Selection of 'Snakes and Ladders' game format
This format featured in many of the children’s ideas and was selected for further development and playtesting.
8. Graphic designer consultations
The game designer met with a graphic designer to incorporate children’s illustrations in the game.
9. Beantopia game finalised
Year 5 schoolchildren are named as co-creators in the game instructions. The game was played by children in Leicestershire BeanMeals schools. 
10. Evaluation
Focus groups, interviews and meal-time observations were used to assess children’s enjoyment of BeanMeals activities and their willingness to eat bean-based meals.

Co-production principles

Power

The game designer focused on treating children as ‘design partners’. To do this, the game designer carefully chose language used to describe activities, clothing (BeanMeals hoodies) and sitting on the floor to avoid being seen as a teacher. Children were encouraged to write and draw in the game designer’s notebook and received a ‘BeanMeals game designer’ sticker. 

Inclusivity

Children were given the freedom to approach the game design activity in their own way, to work together or separately, with different materials to ensure activities could be adapted to each child’s own expressive needs. 

Relationships

The research team highlighted the importance of building on existing connections with schools developed by project partners, Food for Life. 
Game co-design activities provided the opportunity for the game designer to gather information on children’s knowledge of beans and visual representations of parts of the food system. A bank of ideas for illustrations, game narratives and mechanics was created from children’s game ideas, and these were used to develop game prototypes and graphics:
"The drawings are helping to inform the game’s visuals… It's important that the game speaks to the young players, so this type of learning is crucial." (Food for Life 2023)
Game playtesting sessions with Year 5 school children highlighted key learning regarding formats that might work less well in a classroom environment (e.g., if tasks took too long then children got distracted and started talking to one another).
Children enjoyed the game co-design sessions, with teachers noting children’s engagement. Potential positive outcomes for children involved in the game co-design process were highlighted by the game designer: "I feel like that there’s kind of a collateral benefit in doing this kind of stuff with kids in terms of making them feel that they matter," noting that "a lot of them reported feeling important and really proud."

I feel like that there’s kind of a collateral benefit in doing this kind of stuff with kids in terms of making them feel that they matter. A lot of them reported feeling important and really proud.

Project team, BeanMeals 

Related references

BeanMeals (2022), 'BeanMeals: mainstreaming UK-grown beans in healthy meals', Environmental Change Institute. https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/beanmeals.
Ingram, J., and J. Craven (2023), 'Schoolchildren have their finger on the pulse as they help create a new game', Environmental Change Institute. https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/schoolchildren-have-their-finger-pulse-they-help-create-new-game.