What if the best way to teach children about online dangers wasn’t a lecture or a rulebook, but a video game they built themselves?
That’s exactly the idea behind PowerUP, a European project bringing together schools from Portugal, Greece, Poland, and Romania, with digital education experts from Belgium and Italy. The goal: empower children aged 8 to 13 to design their own video games about online safety topics like cyberbullying, fake news, and digital privacy.
Why game design, and not just game playing?
Playing games is fun. But designing one is something else entirely. When a child creates a game about cyberbullying, they have to think about how it happens, why it hurts, and what a solution might look like. They make decisions, build characters, and craft storylines. In doing so, they process the topic in a way that no worksheet ever could.Research backs this up: game-based learning increases engagement and retention, and when children are the creators, not just the audience, the impact goes even deeper.
What children are already telling us
Before the project even started, we asked children across four countries about their online experiences. The results were striking. More than half had encountered something online that made them uncomfortable. Many didn’t know what to do about it. And yet, when asked if they’d like to make a game about these issues, their eyes lit up.
Learning by doing, together
In PowerUP, children won’t be alone in this. Teachers receive dedicated training in both online safety and game design tools, so they can guide students through the creative process. The games produced will be freely available online, made by children, for children.