Gallery
Experiment overview
An interactive educational session conducted during Researchers’ Night at the Experiment Science Center in Gdynia, Poland that challenged children’s perception of the internet as “virtual” and “clean” through hands-on demonstrations and surprising revelations about digital infrastructure’s physical reality and environmental impact.
Main objectives
I designed this experimental lecture to make digital environmental impacts tangible for young minds through following interconnected activities:
1: Revealing surprising physical internet infrastructure facts (like shark-bitten underwater cables)
2: Conducting a “TikTok vs. Water” experiment demonstrating digital water footprints of online scrolling
3: Creating a “Email Carbon” puzzle that physically represented the CO2 emissions from everyday online activities
4: Providing children with rulers made from recycled electronic waste to familiarize them with e-waste as a valuable resource that can be creatively repurposed
Achieved results
The session successfully transformed abstract digital concepts into concrete understanding through physical demonstrations that captured children’s imagination.
The “TikTok vs. Water” experiment created memorable connections between screen time and resource consumption, while the “Email Carbon” puzzle made invisible emissions visible through tangible coal pieces.
The distribution of recycled motherboard rulers as prizes reinforced the message by transforming e-waste into valuable tools, introducing circular thinking at an early age.
Main reflection
This experiment demonstrated that effective environmental education for children requires making invisible impacts visible through tangible experiences rather than abstract concepts.
By combining play with physical demonstration, the lecture established connections between everyday online behaviors and environmental impacts in ways that purely theoretical explanations could not achieve.