The Environment Festival, organized by Kadıköy Municipality every year as part of the World Environment Day activities, was organized this year with the theme “Sustainable City: Work for the Future!”. On behalf of our University, IMU Sustainability Office participated in the festival, which aims to spread environmentally friendly practices in cities, increase green areas, improve waste management and encourage society to act in line with sustainability principles.
IMU Sustainability Office was a guest of Kadıköy Municipality Environment Festival this year with its environmental training programs. Res.Asst. Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK, Res.Asst. Furkan ERUÇAR and Lect. Zehra SAVAN from IMU Sustainability Office team discussed ways to develop sustainable practices in cities and improve waste management in order to create more sustainable cities and communities with the participants through the workshops and games they conducted at the festival held in Özgürlük Park from May 31 to June 02, 2024. The sustainability team provided environmental education with their self-designed TABUSUS and Waste Sorting games, and conducted an upcycling art workshop for three days. Our team also informed our booth visitors about the sustainability activities of our University and the research, activities and practices carried out within our institution for sustainable development purposes. IMU Sustainability Club members also supported the booth activities. The club members presented the booth visitors with organic pulp packets prepared with coffee pulp from the coffee shop in the North Campus and marigold and evening glory seeds that they collected themselves to be used in composting practices and plant care, and provided information about correct composting practices. Approximately 5 kg. of coffee pulp packets and over 500 seeds were given away during the festival.
IMU Sustainability Office organized an hour-long TABUSUS workshop at the booth representing our University in the festival area to raise awareness about sustainable development goals. TABUSUS, a word game designed by Ayça ÇELİKBİLEK, research assistant at IMU Sustainability Office, and developed together with the office team, taught participants the basic concepts of sustainability through gamification. ÇELİKBİLEK pointed out that the game design goes beyond a word-telling game and said that the game is also an environmental education: “The words presented as banned words on the game cards are actually the words we use to teach these concepts to the participants. For this reason, some cards actually contain words or statistical information that people may never use when explaining the keyword. The purpose of this setup of the game is that we also want to convey some information to the participants about those goals within the game. We aimed to convey information through gamification by reflecting the issues that we think are important on the cards in this way.” After the TABUSUS workshop, which attracted great interest, the participants stated that thanks to the game, they realized that the steps to be taken in creating more sustainable and resilient cities also contribute to many different goals such as accessible and clean energy, responsible production and consumption, climate action, aquatic life and terrestrial life. Participants stated that the game enabled them to better understand the interconnectedness of sustainable development goals.
During the festival, the Sustainability team also played with the booth visitors the “Waste Sorting Game” designed and produced by the team. The game provided information on important issues of waste management such as the waste sorting system implemented in Turkey within the scope of zero waste program; recyclable and non-recyclable wastes; and the issues to be considered when throwing waste into waste bins for recycling. The team played the game with children in which waste was sorted through examples. The sustainability team made explanations about the common misconceptions about recycling and emphasized that waste should be disposed of cleanly in waste bins in order to be recycled. Thanks to the Waste Sorting Game, 108 children were trained on waste sorting during the festival.
Drawing attention to the importance of recycling waste, the sustainability team also carried out an upcycling activity with the participation of the booth visitors during the festival to draw attention to the importance of complying with the waste pyramid principles in order to ensure resource efficiency. In the “Upcycling Art Workshop” held at our booth during the festival, a pixel art painting was created with the plastic bottle caps collected by IMU Sustainability Club from our campus areas, cafes and restaurants. In the process, the visitors were informed about recycling to raise awareness about upcycling. In addition, with this social responsibility project, 576 plastic caps were prevented from becoming waste and remaining in nature for 450 years. We aim to exhibit this work in a future exhibition by IMU Sustainability Club to draw attention to environmental pollution caused by plastic waste and the environmental footprint caused by the use of plastics.
