In October 2022 our school, CPIA of UDINE, participated in the EPALE EDU HACK event, organized by Epale. The theme of the social Hackathon was a challenge for peace and sustainability, and to do this activity, we followed some lectures held by INDIRE researchers about digital competencies, sustainable knowledge and creative abilities that are crucial in this kind of competition. We learnt more about gamification techniques, exploring a wide range of examples used in marketing, communication and environmental education. These techniques can be a good way to teach some school topics that usually are considered boring by students, following a bottom-up approach typical of IT jobs.

Motivated by these lectures, we decided to do something new, a game inspired by the notorious show “Masterchef”, a challenge to prepare good, healthy, and sustainable salads. Thus, Salads are much more sustainable than meat, and can positively change the alimentary habits of our population and our students, mainly coming from a migratory background. Our idea was implemented also thanks to a University teacher expert in sustainability and environmental impacts, and so we brought our idea to the place in Rome where the final competition was held among many schools.

The idea of changing the diets with our game was appreciated by EPALE researchers and other persons who attended the Hackathon in Rome, so we were invited to continue our activity involving local environmental associations and to spread the project among all our students.

For this reason, we participated in the opening ceremony of the urban garden of Udine in May 2023 and, after this, we were made aware that our project was approved for the Erasmus funds. It was great news and, since that, we worked to give this project on environmental sustainability a new light. We gave more emphasis to the intercultural aspects that are naturally present among the multicultural students of our school, the CPIA of UDINE.