When Education Becomes an Adventure
Foodland is a comprehensive educational ecosystem that engages students, teachers, and families, with the goal of fostering conscious, lasting behaviours aligned with the principles of the 2030 Agenda.
The solution enhances the effectiveness of educational programs by transforming content into engaging interactive experiences that stimulate active participation, discussion, and guided sharing led by the instructor, fostering deeper and more memorable learning.
The project transforms complex concepts such as mindful eating, environmental sustainability, and physical activity into an interactive world that children aged 8 to 12 can explore, inhabit, and make their own.
The numbers speak for themselves: over 4,000 students and 240 classes have already joined the project, with expansion planned to new schools in 2026.
The Project
Customer need
The design challenge was clear: making dense, scientifically rigorous subjects accessible, engaging, and memorable for a young audience. The answer was to build an experience across three integrated levels.
Identified solution
The digital core. The game takes place on a map of thematic islands, each dedicated to an area of wellbeing: Cook for cooking methods, Larnia for nutritional principles, Eutopia for sustainability, Santé for individual dietary differences, and Gymnasia for physical activity.
Guiding the players is Captain V, a narrative character who gives coherence and continuity to the experience. Each island features mini-games with different mechanics – designing a balanced meal, choosing the healthiest cooking method, composing a weekly menu – with immediate, personalised feedback that explains the reasoning behind each choice, without judgment, but with guidance.
Visual novels integrated at three key moments on each island (opening, midpoint, conclusion) deepen the narrative and make scientific concepts part of a story to live through, not facts to memorise.
The phygital bridge. With Foodland, learning doesn’t stay confined to the screen, it becomes an experience.
Each thematic island is a chapter of the educational adventure in which participants engage in two complementary modes: one entirely digital and one phygital, where physical elements and interactive content are integrated into a single educational ecosystem.
This integration activates both mind and body, encourages engagement, and consolidates skills through a dynamic alternation between online exploration and hands-on application.
The classroom as a space for learning and play.
Educational activities led by teachers transform the classroom into an active and cooperative learning environment. For example, nutrition card games invite students to discuss food choices, justify their answers based on scientific evidence, and collaborate to find solutions.
This learning approach goes beyond the traditional frontal lesson: it’s about active listening, arguing positions, and challenging oneself alongside peers.
It’s not passive training, nor is it mere entertainment. Foodland is an ecosystem in which the physical and relational dimensions interact to generate meaningful and lasting learning.
Features
User management
- Multi-user system with customised access levels (teachers, students, administrators).
Content and interactivity
- Upload and download of multimedia teaching materials.
- Interactive experience based on games, narrative choices, and practical activities following the learning-by-doing principle.
Sponsor section
- Dedicated area for sponsors with custom URLs.
- Ability to offer exclusive content and benefits to families.
Monitoring and metrics
The platform includes a structured and secure data collection system that enables monitoring of the usage and effectiveness of the educational experience.
Building Behaviours, Creating Value
From an educational point of view, Foodland achieves something that traditional methods rarely manage to do: it transforms knowledge into behaviour. When a child discovers through play why a certain food is good for his health, that discovery becomes his own: not an imposed rule, but an understanding acquired through experience.
From a social and institutional value perspective, a project like this demonstrates how an organisation can exercise a concrete and measurable impact on new generations, positioning itself as a responsible and innovative player in the educational ecosystem.
For the Veronesi Foundation, Foodland has become a tool for communicating its scientific mission through a modern, accessible language.
For any company or organisation wishing to invest in education, prevention, or sustainability – through institutional partnerships or training programs – this model offers a concrete reference point for doing so with rigour, creativity, and real impact.
Opportunities in Education
Foodland is proof that game-based learning and scientific rigour are not in contradiction: they reinforce each other. The integration of Game Thinking into education, thanks to its versatility, makes it possible to address any subject and improve learning through play.
Video games present an opportunity to align teaching with the digital native generations, who are increasingly accustomed to moving fluidly between real-world contexts and virtual environments.
If you’re looking for a partner capable of transforming educational, training, or communication objectives into interactive experiences that truly work, this is exactly the kind of work we do best.
