Green Quest Training in Riga: From Playing to Facilitating

How do you prepare youth workers to facilitate a complex sustainability simulation? Not by explaining the rules once and handing them a manual. The best way is to experience the process, test it, make mistakes, reflect, and then try again.

This was the idea behind the Green Quest Youth Workers Training, held in Riga from 17–20 July 2025. The four-day transnational programme brought together youth workers from Latvia and Austria and focused on preparing them to facilitate the Green Quest simulation game in their own communities. The training combined experiential learning, gamified methods, simulation practice and structured reflection, giving participants the chance to understand the methodology from both sides: first as players, and then as facilitators. 

Understanding the game from the inside

The first part of the programme focused on the foundations of simulation-based learning and why experiential methods can be especially effective in youth work. Participants explored stakeholder roles, conflicting interests, systems thinking and negotiation dynamics before moving into the structure of Green Quest itself. Rather than treating sustainability as a topic with one correct answer, the training encouraged participants to look at environmental challenges as systems shaped by different interests, priorities and power relations. 

Participants then worked through the Green Quest simulation in detail, exploring its five contested sustainability issues, stakeholder briefs, scoring system and consensus model. Through stakeholder mapping and interests analysis, they examined how different actors may approach the same sustainability challenge from completely different perspectives. This preparation was important because Green Quest is not simply about arguing for or against a wind farm. The learning comes from understanding why each stakeholder thinks and acts the way they do, and how compromise becomes possible when participants move beyond fixed positions. 

From participant to facilitator

As the training progressed, the focus shifted from understanding the game to learning how to run it. Youth workers practised facilitating individual negotiation rounds in mock settings, explored common facilitation challenges and discussed how to manage group dynamics without taking over the decision-making process. They also looked at how the simulation can be adapted for different group sizes, participant profiles and local learning contexts. 

Debriefing received particular attention. In a simulation, the final agreement is only part of the learning. The facilitator also needs to help participants unpack what happened: Why did certain coalitions form? Who had influence? Which interests were ignored? What compromises were made? Did the final agreement actually feel sustainable and fair? The training therefore included specific practice on how to guide reflection and transform the experience of the game into deeper learning about sustainability, negotiation and decision-making. 

A full dry-run gave participants the opportunity to facilitate sections of the game themselves, receive peer feedback and refine their approach. This was one of the most practical elements of the programme because participants could test their facilitation style in a supportive environment before implementing Green Quest with young people. 

Preparing for local implementation

The final part of the training focused on how Green Quest could fit into participants' existing youth work. Youth workers discussed complementary activities, possible adaptations and ways to connect the simulation with broader sustainability education. They also developed action plans for local pilot activities, ensuring that the training would lead directly to implementation rather than remain an isolated international experience. 

Beyond the technical side of the methodology, the four days also created space for peer learning between the Latvian and Austrian participants. They exchanged experiences from their own organisations, discussed challenges in sustainability education and explored how simulation games can support critical thinking, negotiation, participation and civic engagement among young people. 

The Green Quest training demonstrated that learning how to facilitate a simulation is itself an experiential process. Youth workers had the opportunity to play, analyse, practise, facilitate, receive feedback and plan their next steps, building the confidence needed to create meaningful sustainability discussions with young people after returning home.

Erasmus+ Small scale partnership

Green Quest - The Simulation Game

Project No.  2024-1-LV02-KA210-YOU-000243276

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.