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    • Project Overview Exploring how design-led research can support greener, more resilient futures for island and coastal communities.
    • 2025 – Present A thematic approach
    • 2023 – 2025 One vision, five work packages.
    • Fellowships Space for researchers, designers, artists and creative practitioners to collaborate, experiment and learn.
  • About
    • About Future Island-Island A collaborative project led by Ulster University, with Queen’s University, The Glasgow School of Art, University of the Arts London
    • Why Rathlin Island? Northern Ireland’s only inhabited offshore island, Rathlin is a place shaped by weather, story, and memory.
    • Our People Connecting academic research with lived experience, practical making and community knowledge.
    • Glossary
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Belfast Design Week – Designed to Learn: Creating Environmental Board Games with Children


May 5, 2026
Organiser(s): Jenny Jackson-Smyth & Dr Susann Power

Location: HALT (Weaver's Cross)

Times: 12:00noon - 14:00pm

Cost: Free to attend

This fascinating talk and workshop gives an overview of the Future Island-Island project where two academics will explain and deliver hands-on creative, design-led workshops to children aged 9-11 years old (Key Stage 2) based on creating board games relating to specific environmental themes such as marine plastic waste, habitat loss and land pollution.

During these design-led workshops, children dive into the world of storytelling through the immersive lens of board game design. Using character cards, from The Extraordinaires Design Studio framework, to address how environmental impacts (e.g., marine plastic waste, habitat loss and land pollution) affect these characters, children learn about critical issues while creating imaginative and extraordinary games in a collaborative setting.
This talk will involve an overview of the children’s creative workshops, the project’s methodology, partners and showcase some designs and learnings taken from these sessions.

Key insights also relate to understanding how children learn about otherwise abstract and difficult topics, the impacts and the benefits of design-led learning, and the power of creativity in all forms.

At the end of this talk, children (and adults) will dive into the world of storytelling through the immersive lens of game design. Using character cards, from The Extraordinaires Design Studio framework, to address how environmental impacts affect these characters, children learn about critical issues while creating imaginative and extraordinary games in a collaborative setting.

This talk will provide an overview of previous children’s creative workshops, the project’s methodology, partners and will showcase some designs and learnings taken from these sessions. Key insights also relate to understanding how children learn about otherwise abstract and difficult topics, the impacts and the benefits of design-led learning, and the power of creativity in all forms.

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