Welcome to Planet B

A children’s pop-up book about climate change

Entirely analog and easy to grasp even for little hands: the new Deep Space 8K application Welcome to Planet B was brought to a child-friendly format for 8- to 12-year-olds in 2022 as part of the Ars Electronica Futurelab’s creative contest Ideas Expedition. The interactive pop-up book is designed to get kids excited about climate protection and to get them to marvel, grasp and understand – and, above all, to participate.

In the new interactive 3D game at Deep Space 8K, visitors are invited to make decisions as a team to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lab-grown meat or vegan diet? Alternative drive vehicles or public transportation? On the fictional Planet B, they can test how sustainable their group’s choices are.

With the Welcome to Planet B children’s book, the Ars Electronica Futurelab team prepares the complex content in a way that’s appropriate for children. The paper-like layers of the 3D animations in the Deep Space 8K application are found as pop-up illustrations in the children’s book. As a colorful, foldable universe of ideas and possibilities, it is intended to give children an approach to the important questions of the future: What is climate change doing to us and to our world? What can we change so that tomorrow’s world is worth living in? What kind of world do we want to create for ourselves?

Young readers are gently confronted with decisions about their own everyday lives and are invited to create their own “Planet B”. The “foldable Deep Space 8K” for the reading corner wants to spread an optimistic message among children: Big or small – everyone can make a difference!

The Welcome to Planet B pop-up book for children was presented for the first time at the 2022 Ars Electronica Festival.

Credits

Ars Electronica Futurelab Kerstin Blätterbinder, Susanne Kiesenhofer, Nicolas Naveau

Welcome to Planet B – A children’s pop-up book about climate change is a winner project of the 2022 Ars Electronica Futurelab Ideas Expedition

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Interested in similar projects? The following Ars Electronica Futurelab projects are related to the ideas and concepts presented here. An overview of all our productions, cooperations and projects can be found in our project archive.