Ready, Set, GOoooose!
It’s no secret that I think a lot about cultivating joy in climate action and sustainability work. Doing so is not a denial of the unpleasant emotions this work can entail, but rather it's a recognition of a part of the human spirit that makes life worth living.
The field of positive psychology suggests that fostering pleasant emotions, like joy and playfulness, helps us be more creative and open to others while boosting our own mental well-being. This in turn builds social and mental resources we can draw upon to solve problems now and in the future. This all sounds pretty good considering we're in desperate need of creativity, connection and resilience given the current challenges we face!
In this post, I’d like to share a particularly fun and impactful activity I co-created to help others engage playfully in sustainability efforts called the Green Goose Chase.
My colleague at the Sustainability Institute and I developed the Green Goose Chase in 2021 as a way to build some interactivity into the annual La Crosse (Wisconsin) Earth Fair which, like most other COVID-19 era programming, shifted to a virtual format. Our goals were to help participants learn about the Good Life Goals (an emoji-cized version of the UN Sustainable Development Goals); experience local sustainability efforts; explore parts of their communities they might not be aware of; and build community by having fun together.
Using the GooseChase platform* (huge shoutout to the team at GooseChase), we developed a 10-day-long community-wide scavenger hunt meets mission-based game whereby teams accrue points by texting in answers, submitting photos & videos, and heading to specific locations to obtain a GPS location tag all through an app on their phones.
For this year’s Green Goose Chase (the 5th annual!) we created over 40 missions that waddled the gamut from driving attendance to the local marsh clean-up event to rescuing “ugly” fruit from the landfill to contacting elected officials to building awareness of local solar array installers. One of my favorite missions had participants taking a video of them performing car-pool karaoke to a transportation-related song.
We knew we were on to something after 2021 when 42 teams played the game, but the growth in participation and the creativity on display over the past five years has blown us out of the honkin' water. The hard-core teams often create team costumes and personas, and take pride in completing each and every mission. Some even take vacation time to participate. Honkin’ unbelievable! This year, the 80 teams participating submitted over 1,300 posts to the game feed throughout the week.
This was the most fun we have had in a long time, and we will likely be talking about it for many years to come...It was really cool and inspiring to see what other participants were posting, too! We learned, we played, and we explored all together.
-Green Goose Chase participant
I think there are two overarching elements to this experience that make it particularly playful. First, we intentionally create missions that tap into choice, wonder, and delight – three key ingredients to playful pedagogy. Teams are given agency to choose which missions to complete and in many cases how to complete them. Teams are asked to explore, to create, and to learn more. Finally, teams are encouraged to revel in delight through laughter, being silly, and connecting to each other and the world.
The second element of the Green Goose Chase that promotes playfulness is that it is inviting and inclusive. Green Goose Chase teams are made up of all sorts of people– friends, family members, co-workers– and our missions encourage all different ages to be able to play together. As people post their antics to the game feed, which appears on participants’ Goose Chase app, they observe others’ zany costumes and antics. Interestingly we’ve noticed that teams consisting of all adults seem to get more playful and creative in their responses when they see other adults being playful in the game feed. Sometimes we just need permission to play!
We were an all adult first time team participating and it was SO fun. We all came away with new knowledge of sustainability actions in our community and had a great time doing it.
- 2025 Green Goose Chase participant
Of course, it isn’t likely that the Green Goose Chase is producing a cohort of die hard climate crusaders, but that isn't the point. Based on our increasing engagement numbers, the number of returning teams, and the positive feedback participants consistently offer, I'm confident that through joy and playfulness we're creating more inspired and aware community members with the potential to be engaged in climate action for the long-term.
* I am not being paid or otherwise compensated by GooseChase to endorse their product.
