Scale Down Challenge

The Scale Down Challenge is a project that I developed together with Wout Stroucken and Stichting HOLY (supported by Oxfam Novib) for school children between the age of 8 and 18. The goal is to teach kids more about ideas of sustainable consumption in playful ways. The result is an interactive installation, the ‘Scale Down Scale’ in the form of an oversized vegetable scale. Once on it, students can choose from a range of 30 small challenges which they are invited to take on. Each participant receives a receipt with their personal challenges printed on, which is simultaneously uploaded to the website. Challenges like the ‘Peanut Butter Boost’, ‘Veggie on Vacation’ or ‘Chili sin Carne’ help the children to understand the impact that their daily routines can have on the environment and invite them to experience strategies to reduce their ecological footprint with adjusting those routines. They learn about preparing and producing their own food and products, reducing waste and food-spillage or to inform themselves about food ingredients and production cycles. Each challenge is also connected to a unique hashtag through which participants can share their results on Instagram and Twitter, which are then linked back to the webpage through an Instagram-filter. The installation travels to schools and events throughout the Netherlands and is accompanied by workshops and education programs developed by Stichting HOLY.