Self-experiments at home

Experimenting for more sustainability and changing everyday life on a trial basis

Just leave the car at home. Give up animal products for a month. Slow down your lifestyle and focus on the essentials. We often have the desire or need for more sustainability in our everyday lives. But where to start? Which areas are suitable? And what can I actually change? A temporary self-experiment can provide the necessary impetus to move from knowledge to action.

Self-experiments make it possible to break out of established routines and adopt new perspectives. It is more about trying things out than about direct, quick success. Because we simply learn the most from our own experience, from what we observe ourselves and also from failure.

You want to learn more about self-experiments?

Annika Fricke will be happy to advise you

Telefon: +49 721 608-24707

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The self-experiments we have developed all relate to a more sustainable way of life. Because on the path to sustainable development, we all have a role to play. Not only, but also, our very individual way of life plays a decisive role here. Sustainable development takes into account the world around us, the environment and posterity. In addition to ecological approaches, self-experiments can therefore also address social issues, such as treating ourselves or our fellow human beings with respect.

Ideas for self-experiments

The team from the Karlsruhe Transformation Center motivates people to start a self-experiment by developing individually designed self-experiments together with citizens. In addition, people receive scientific support and advice when carrying out their experiments. If you would like to carry out your own self-experiment, you can use material developed by KAT, such as a guide, a mobile self-experiment generator or a postcard.

Design your own self-experiment! After just a few preliminary considerations, such as choosing the field of action, the approach and the goal, you can get started right away. People from your circle of friends or acquaintances can also be invited to experiment themselves.

You can download the self-experiment postcard here (in German)

What is behind the individual tiles on the graphic? There is a more detailed description for each field, which can help you choose the right self-experiment. You can read the detailed descriptions here (in German).

New guide for self-experiments

The guide "From knowledge to action: self-experiments for more sustainability" shows how the self-experiment format can bring more sustainability into everyday life. It is primarily aimed at climate protection managers, sustainability managers and employees in public institutions such as municipalities, churches and schools. The guide was developed by the project team of Klimaschutz gemeinsam wagen! In addition to helpful advice and information on climate coaching, the guide also contains reports on the results of successful self-experiments.

Download guide (in German)

Self-experiments in action an to participate

Exhibition Klima_X at the Museum for Communication Frankfurt

We are delighted to be part of this exhibition, which focuses on climate communication. From October 13, 2022 to August 28, 2023, we will be represented there with a poster on the self-experiments. More information about the exhibition can be found here.

Dare to protect the climate together!

The aim of the project was to work together with citizens and stakeholders in Karlsruhe's Oststadt district to promote a culture of sustainability in which climate protection is lived as a matter of course in everyday life. Climate-friendly alternative actions and everyday routines were developed in the three areas of nutrition, mobility and consumption. The project team also developed and designed the self-experiment guide in summer 2022. Project duration: 2018 - 2022.

To the project website

Spring Days of Sustainability

As part of the annual action days at KIT until 2022, we held seminars in which we explained the format of the self-experiments and developed the experiments together with students.

Exhibit on board the "MS Wissenschaft"

Our real-world laboratory exhibit "How do we shape a future worth living?" was part of the "In demand" exhibition from May to October 2022. The centerpiece of the exhibit is the so-called "self-experiment generator". It helps visitors to create an individual self-experiment for a more sustainable lifestyle.

You can read the blog article "How do we shape a future worth living?" about the exhibit here.

Documenta Fifteen

In order to bring the self-experiment format closer to a younger target audience, we developed a memory game especially for workshops at the Documenta. This was used in the form of so-called "educational boxes".

Self-experiment generator

The self-experiment generator developed by KAT is a kind of mobile station where interested parties can design a self-experiment tailored to their personal needs. This involves selecting small cards with different descriptions in a total of six categories (field of action, procedure, objective, observation, support and evaluation) and assigning them. The finished self-experiments can then be uploaded to this padlet and presented to the world for imitation.

Further Information

Do you have any questions about the self-experiments or are you interested in further information? Then please contact Annika Fricke or Eva Wendeberg or use the contact form.

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