About us
Our Story So Far
Climate Dice is an engaging storytelling dice game that inspires players to (RE)imagine a better life on planet Earth!
I’m Pendar Vatanian — founder, creator, and the storyteller behind Climate Dice.
The journey began with a simple but urgent question:
How can we help young people explore climate and other crises in ways that are hopeful, creative, and empowering — rather than overwhelming?
While working with schools, educators, and communities, I noticed a troubling pattern: children cared deeply about the living world, yet the way we talked about climate, systems, and the future often left them anxious, passive, or shut down.
At home, I was witnessing the opposite. My daughter — an avid storyteller — could turn a quiet afternoon into entire worlds. Characters, conflicts, futures, solutions. No fear. No paralysis. Just imagination and play.
It made me realise something essential:
Children already possess the tools our world needs — imagination, creativity, curiosity, and collaboration.
And we all know that everything around us has been someone’s imagination at some point.
The world doesn’t just happen to us; it is imagined, designed, and reshaped over time.
But imagination needs space. It needs time. It needs what I call the luxury of boredom — those unstructured pockets of life where children invent rather than consume.
Climate Dice was born from that understanding: a set of hand-illustrated dice that invite players to roll, imagine, and co-create narratives about climate, community, and possibility. Through story, children explore difficult themes safely, express their hopes, and experiment with futures they’d like to live in.
Along the way, I became convinced of something:
Imagination is a right — and we have a duty to protect that right.
Because without imagination, there is no agency.
And without agency, change becomes impossible.
What started at the kitchen table with my daughter eventually moved into classrooms, museums, workshops, nature programmes, and cultural spaces. Today, Climate Dice is used by schools, educators, councils, outdoor practitioners, and families around the world to help children reconnect with imagination, nature, and agency.
This is still the beginning of the journey — but it’s grounded in a simple belief:
Before we build a better world, we must first be able to imagine one.
Who we work with
Climate Dice is all about (RE)imagination, so when we designed our new version, we used the same process to make it even better. That’s why we like to call it Climate Dice (RE)imagined! The design and resources are the result of extensive consultation with experts in the field of educating children about climate change and how to address the increasingly apparent issue of eco-anxiety in young people. But that’s not all. The new version is just as much fun as ever.
We are extremely grateful to:
- Rachel Musson, Director of ThoughtBox https://www.thoughtboxeducation.com for her invaluable support in producing our Teachers’ Guide to Climate Dice
- Kit Marie Rackley, Climate science educator and ex-Geography teacher https://geogramblings.com/ author/geogramblings for her significant contribution to the ‘Handle With Care’ section of our guides, identifying issues that may contribute to eco-anxiety
- Jo McAndrews, psychotherapist and environmental campaigner, https://www.jomcandrews.com for her profoundly important advice for parents and family members on talking to their children about climate change in a safe and supportive way.
We would also like to acknowledge the importance of others, who may not have contributed directly but whose work and support has helped and guided us along the way:
- Caroline Hickman, of The University of Bath and The Climate Psychology Alliance https://www.caroline-hickman.com
- Harriet Shugarman, Executive Director of ClimateMama and author of the award-winning book ‘How to Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change.
The Learning Theories Behind Our Game
According to research, including that undertaken by Dr. Bruce Lipton, we use our conscious mind only 5% of the time, while the remaining 95% of our life is controlled by our subconscious. Our subconscious is programmed in the first seven years of our lives. To make learning about the world more interesting for children, we developed the 6E model – Entertain, Engage, Educate, Explore, Experiment and Empower. Our 6E model is our way to educate children, very gently, while they are having fun. We’ve tested our 6E model for over a decade in many schools, both directly and indirectly through a number of programmes, such as Eco-Schools and Green Schools. Our results have been hugely encouraging.
Through our games,
children learn about social and environmental issues, such as biodiversity, transport, energy, water, waste, litter, healthy lifestyles, endangered animals, global citizenship, marine health and ocean plastic, peace, health and wellbeing etc. By playing our games, they learn how every decision that they make in life affects the environment and life of others on planet Earth. It is this learning that shapes their subconscious. In other words, they become eco-subconscious citizens of Earth and can play their part in making positive change happen.
