Green Phenix makes young people PlasticWise with interactive e-learning about plastic pollution

From tackling plastic pollution to raising awareness in the next generation

Green Phenix is a social enterprise in Curaçao that works on sustainable development, circular and inclusive economies, and protecting the ocean. From that mission, the organisation combines practical recycling with research, policy development, community engagement, and education.

Awareness starts young. How do you explain to children and young people why plastic is such a big problem, where it comes from, and what they can do to make change possible?

Green Phenix developed the PlasticWise programme for this purpose. Maxcademy helped to translate this programme into an interactive digital learning experience that is freely available to young people in the Caribbean and beyond.

Learning with Chloe, Camilo and Tito the Turtle

Plastic pollution is a large and sometimes abstract topic. PlasticWise makes it more personal by taking participants into a story with Chloe, her brother Camilo and Tito the Turtle.

Tito experiences the effects of plastic in the ocean up close. From his story, Chloe and Camilo, together with the participant, explore how plastic ends up in the environment, what microplastics are, how plastic is produced and what choices people can make to reduce plastic use and waste.

The characters make it possible to explain facts through conversations, questions and relatable comparisons. This way, scientific and societal information becomes part of an ongoing story rather than a series of isolated facts.

Video, illustrations, knowledge questions, matching and badges

The course is deliberately not structured as a long digital text. Within the units, explanations, images and active processing alternate.

The e-learning includes videos, illustrated characters, knowledge questions, multiple-choice questions, matching exercises and short summaries. After completing sections, participants can earn badges and are directed to the next part of the learning adventure.

In Unit 1 about plastic pollution, participants learn for example why plastic is a problem, how it ends up in the ocean and what happens to the material afterwards. Topics such as microplastics, biodiversity loss and social and economic consequences are also covered.

View an animation from PlasticWise

Animation plays an important role within PlasticWise. The characters and visual explanations help to explain topics such as plastic pollution, the ocean and behaviour in an accessible way to a young audience.

Developed for a multilingual Caribbean audience

PlasticWise is publicly available in English and Papiamentu. This allows the same learning setup to be used for young people in Curaçao and other English-speaking and Papiamentu-speaking islands in the Caribbean.

Maxcademy has also announced that it will work with L'ASSO-MER on a French localisation of the programme. The same digital foundation can thus be expanded to new language areas without having to redesign the learning concept.

This makes PlasticWise not only a local education project but a scalable learning solution around a problem that affects all island communities.

Check out PlasticWise yourself

This case study does not only need to explain how the e-learning works: the full programme is public. Check out the introduction and the five units on the Green Phenix website.

Experience it yourself?

Start the English course or choose the Papiamentu version via Green Phenix.

 Start PlasticWise 

A free, scalable education programme on plastic pollution

The result is an online learning programme that Green Phenix can use alongside its practical activities around recycling, awareness, and community engagement.

PlasticWise combines:

• an introduction and five online units;
• storytelling with recurring characters;
• video, illustration, and visual explanation;
• interactive knowledge questions and matching exercises;
• badges and clear progress through the programme;
• English and Papiamentu versions for a multilingual audience;
• free public access via the Green Phenix website.

For Maxcademy, Green Phenix demonstrates how societal expertise can be translated into an attractive digital learning programme for young people — and how such a programme can then be scaled across countries and languages.

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