Cicloschools Hackathon in Berlin – Hack the game

Comparative Research Network organized two hackathons as part of CicloSchools project, a European project dedicated to raise awareness on sustainability and circular economy issues. A project in which our organization is engaged alongside several partner organizations across Europe.

As part of this initiative, CRN recently hosted two hackathons bringing together high school students to explore sustainability and circular economy challenges through an innovative, hands-on and gamified format. The concept: take an existing game and “hack” it, reinventing how it’s played to better reflect real-world issues that matter to young people today.

Over the course of these events, students worked in teams to redesign the rules, mechanics, and narrative of an existing game, weaving in sustainability and circular economy themes that resonated with their own experiences and concerns. This game-hacking approach combined creativity, critical thinking, and hands-on engagement with environmental issues in a playful yet meaningful way.

The ideation phase emerged as a highlight of both hackathons, where students dove into true co-creation. They exchanged ideas, challenged assumptions, and collectively built new game concepts from the ground up. This stage sparked some of the most dynamic and thoughtful discussions of the events, as students pushed each other to think critically about the issues, they wanted their games to address.

The hackathons culminated in a pitch phase, where each team presented and defended their reimagined game to the group. This proved to be one of the most demanding parts of the exercise, requiring students to distil their ideas and creative work into clear, compelling presentations.

Beyond the games themselves, these two hackathons demonstrated the power of the hackathon methodology to engage young people with complex global challenges, fostering active learning, creative problem-solving, and a deeper connection to sustainability issues.

All project resources are available free of charge via the official website: https://cicloschools.eu.

For further information or enquiries, please contact: cicloschoolsproject@gmail.com

About CicloSchools:

CicloSchools is a pioneering project funded by the European Union’s Erasmus Programme, under Action KA220-SCH — Partnerships for cooperation in primary and secondary education. Its aim is to drive the integration of education for the circular economy into secondary schools across Europe, fostering a generation of innovative and environmentally conscious thinkers.