Mental Wellness Games Meet Eco-Anxiety Head On
Updated: Sep 17
Environmental change and mental wellness are more connected than they might first appear. As young people grow up more aware of climate change, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss, eco-anxiety has become a real and growing part of how they experience the world.
In 2022, Ecogames partnered with The Contentment Foundation to design four pilot games, centered on self-awareness, connection and emotional resilience rather than direct environmental content.
The Contentment Foundation is a US-registered non-profit focused on wellbeing education in schools and communities. Its Four Pillars of Wellbeing framework provides a model for understanding and cultivating physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing for children and teachers.
The four games, developed together, each address a different angle of that work:
Curryosity is a self-awareness and connection game for adults, where players answer progressively more personal questions to build fast, meaningful connections with others.
Ripples of Kindness turns small acts of kindness into a fast-paced card game, encouraging players, alone or as a family team, to think through practical ways to make a positive difference to the people around them.
Emotionwise! asks players to express feelings through writing, acting, singing and drawing, building emotional intelligence through creativity rather than conversation alone.
Mindful Matches is a matching card game for all ages, built around focused attention, a simple way to practise mindfulness and concentration in a format young children can play too.
Working closely with The Contentment Foundation on the emotional and psychological side of play gave Ecogames a much clearer picture of how self-awareness, connection and mindfulness actually get built through games. We also learned how essential these skills of internal resilience are for children who are grappling with a rapidly changing environment.
That understanding has stayed with our team ever since. Environmental literacy and emotional resilience are now integrated across Ecogames' wider work. Helping children understand a changing world, and helping them cope with what that means for their own wellbeing, work best when addressed hand-in-hand. We are grateful to The Contentment Foundation for their role in our adoption of this approach.
If you're working with schools or communities navigating environmental change and want tools that support both eco-literacy and wellbeing, get in touch to talk through what Ecogames could offer.