Using Drawings as an Assessment Tool: The Impact of EcoFactory Serious Game in Primary Education

EcoFactory is a serious game addressing late-primary and early secondary school students. Its purpose is to raise both awareness and interest of the young students regarding sustainable manufacturing. The serious game provides children with a didactical experience, which is fun, on how manufacturing and sustainability can live together, along three dimensions: society, environment and economic cost. In order to achieve this goal, EcoFactory consists of a virtual factory where young children are challenged with decisions on product design, shopfloor configuration and human resource management, with the aim of achieving sustainable production that is also profitable. This paper presents the impact assessment of EcoFactory on the level of awareness of late-primary students with regards to sustainable manufacturing. Two separate case studies were conducted in primary school settings totalling 43 Italian students. For the majority of the students, it was the first time that they encountered either the concept of manufacturing, or sustainability. The paper describes the methodology that was devised for an age appropriate assessment using drawings complemented by a small questionnaire derived from the "Draw-An-Engineer" questionnaire. These drawings were supplemented and triangulated with data from semi-structured interviews and observations made in situ by a researcher.