OPEN FORMAT
Why choose an Open Format?
Choose Open Format when you want to explore creative ways of engaging your audience with an environmental issue. It gives you the freedom to experiment with how people experience, interact with or respond to your message through formats such as games, comics, artwork, installations, creative writing, interactive experiences or mixed media.
Environmental communication can take many forms, and the most effective format depends on what you want to communicate, who you want to reach, and how you want to engage them. The Open Format category creates space for young reporters to explore forms of communication beyond article, photo, podcast and video formats.
Work could include paintings, illustrations, comics, poetry, creative writing, sculptures, installations, theatre or performance, games, interactive or digital media, AI-supported creative works, mixed media like songs or musical videos, or other innovative formats.
The core of any YRE work should always be: investigating an environmental issue, exploring solutions, developing an original idea and intentionally choosing how best to communicate it to a relevant audience.
The format is open; the purpose remains environmental communication led by young people.
Examples of Open format entries by Young Reporters
Videogame:
Title: What would you do?
Names: Stormur Snorrason, Tómas Logi helgason, Húgó Heiðreksson og Elías Bjarni Jensson (Iceland)
At Tækniskólinn, a junior college in Iceland, young reporters for the environment used a creative platform to educate and raise awareness of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) amongst participants.
The students created a computer game where participants are faced with real-life scenarios and must choose between different outcomes, related to the SDGs. The choices represent how every decision people take has an impact on both the environment and our societies.
Example of a game question: A factory pollutes the river but employs many employees. Options: Keep the factory open (polluting a lot). close it (many people lose their jobs). invest in expensive green technology (costs a lot of money)
Link to game:Hvað Myndir Þú Gera Ef? by tommilogi
The Hands of Gaia by Celeste (Argentina)
Artwork:
Title: The Hands of Gaia (Gaea)
Name: Celeste
Celeste used visual art and environmental storytelling to explore the relationship between human choices, food, pollution and the health of our planet.
The artwork places Gaia, Mother Earth, at its centre, divided between two contrasting realities. On one side, she holds a basket filled with fresh, natural food, surrounded by signs of abundance, biodiversity and regeneration. On the other, she carries a basket of contaminated food, cans and disposable packaging, representing pollution, irresponsible consumption and environmental degradation.
Through watercolour, markers, colour contrasts, mythology and environmental symbolism, the artwork communicates how our choices can either contribute to restoring the Earth or place further pressure on it. It is an example of how young reporters can use creative visual expression as a form of environmental communication,