Tool "Energizers"

Language: English

Project Featuring This Tool: All Together Against Climate Change

Themes:Environment Other Peer education

Differents energizers to work with your groups

Age not relevant
Date published 3 Feb 2012, 11:42

Step-by-step instructions

Trees, People and CO2
This energizer is a variation of Goblins, Wizards and Giants. There are two groups; in each round one group will try to catch members of the other group. When someone is caught, they join the other group.
Each group decides on one of three roles in each round (without telling the others). Then the groups stand in two lines facing each other. On the signal, they ‘perform’ their roles by doing the action specified below. The group whose role beats the other chases the other group to their side of the room (or a defined line outside) and tries to catch any they can from the other team. If both have chosen the same role, they have to go back into their groups to decide on a role again.
The three roles are: People, trees and CO2:
People beat trees (by cutting them down)
Trees beat CO2 (by sucking it up)
CO2 beats people (by creating climate change).
Trees: swaying arms above the head
People: chopping down a tree with an axe
CO2: Rising from the earth into the atmosphere (doing a ‘starjump’ jumping up with arms and legs spread widely)

Impact Game
Everyone stands in a circle. Without telling anyone, each person chooses another person to copy. When you say go, everyone has to try to stand as still as possible, but people will inevitably make small movements. Each participant should copy their chosen person’s movements, but exaggerate them just slightly. The game ends when everyone is jumping in the air or rolling on the floor! This energizer shows how small changes can have a large impact.

Polar Bears and Melting Ice Bergs
This energizer is a variation of musical chairs. Put several sheets of newspaper on the floor, just big enough so that everyone will fit on a piece of paper, and with enough space between them to dance around. The newspaper sheets are icebergs and the participants are polar bears. The music plays and the polar bears swim (dance) around the icebergs. When the music stops, they have to find place on an iceberg. After each round fold one of the sheets of newspapers in half. When the music stops again, it gets more difficult for each polar bear to find place on an iceberg. Fold another sheet after each round. The polar bears help each other to fit on the icebergs. If someone doesn’t find a place, they need to leave the game.

COP Energizer
This energizer is a variation of ‘The Crazy Professor and Their Robots’. Form groups of four. One person in each group is a negotiator. The others are countries. The negotiator has to bring together three countries walking in different directions. One person does not have a group and represents the USA.
The groups spread out in the room. The three countries stand with their backs close together. When the facilitator says ‘Go’, the countries start walking. They can only walk straight forward. When they cannot continue walking (because there is a wall, a chair or another country), they walk on the spot and say “I can’t accept that” over and over, so the negotiator knows where they are.
The role of the negotiator is to bring the countries back together, facing each other. The countries can change direction if the negotiator taps on their shoulder. If they tap on the right shoulder, the country must turn 90 right. If they tap on the left shoulder, they must turn 90 left. The USA runs around trying to sabotage the struggle by tapping different countries on the shoulder.

Island Drowning
This is a variation of ‘Baby on the Highway’. The players all stand in a circle except for one who stands in the centre.
The person in the middle points at someone in the circle and gives them an instruction. The person who was pointed out must ‘act out’ this instruction with the help of the two people either side of them. If one of the three people makes a mistake, they replace the person in the middle.
Island drowning: The person in the middle goes down, holding their nose. The two on the side hold their arms around the person in the middle, swinging them like waves and going up. Rainforest: The person in the middle is a rainforest tree, swaying their arms above their head. The two on the sides cut it down with axes.
Renewable energy: The person in the middle is standing still, holding their arms up like a high pole of a wind turbine. The people on the side are the rotating wings (swinging arms around). Heavy storm: The person in the middle blows loudly, holding their hands next to their mouth like a megaphone. The two on the side are heavy rainfall, moving their hands like a shower above the person in the middle.

**Globingo*
Sit in a circle. One person doesn’t have a chair and stands in the middle. The person in the middle says an activity that contributes to climate change. All participants who answer this with yes need to change places. The person in the middle tries to get a chair. Examples:
Change places if…
You like eating food from other countries
You have ever been abroad by plane
You have a relative or friend living in another country
You buy products made in different countries
You or your parents own a car
You eat meat
You don’t recycle everything you can
You have a tumble dryer at home
You…

Energy Game
Explain that there are different types of fuel we use to get energy. Some of these are called ‘fossil fuels’. These are coal, oil and gas. They are dirty to use, and the gases they give off are making the earth warmer. There are sources of energy that do not have a bad effect on the environment. These include power from wind, waves, the sun, and rivers.
Call out different words, and the group should respond with different actions as follows: wind (run around the room blowing), waves (swim around the room), sun (stand still with eyes closed, lying in the sun), rivers (spin arms around each other in front like a turbine). Occasionally shout ‘fossil fuels’. At this everyone should sit down in a ball (like a piece of coal) and shout back ‘no thank you’. Stop when everyone gets tired.

Squash the Rubbish
For this energizer you need a large box full of ‘rubbish’ (toilet rolls, drink cans, plastic milk cartons, sweet wrappers…) and four plastic bags. Make sure the rubbish is much too big to fit into the four bags.
Divide into four teams and divide the rubbish between them (every group should have a ‘portion’ of roughly equal size). The teams must try to get all their rubbish into their bag as fast as possible. This can be the start into a discussion about throwing fewer things away/ buying less rubbish.

Attached files