Children love nothing more than playing games. Gruner + Jahr therefore decided to develop a game: "Meltdown" – the world’s first ever melting board game. Meltdown illustrates the effects of global warming in a playful way. The aim of the game is to guide miniature polar bears to safety on the mainland across real ice floes that are slowly melting away. The children make the ice floes themselves by putting a big of water in a mould and letting it set in the freezer. These are then arranged on the blue game board, which is also a sponge that absorbs the melting ice. With floes in places, the game is ready to play. It is unusual for a classic publishing house to develop a board game, but Gruner + Jahr takes its social responsibility very seriously. An unconventional concept was needed to spark the interest of as many children as possible in the otherwise boring topic of global warming. For the publishing company, the message was therefore more important than the number of units sold.

Gruner + Jahr launched a broadly structured education offensive: as part of a series of free presentations, GEOlino presented the game to primary schools all over Germany. Hundreds of school children rescued scores of polar bears and learned something about the threat of climate change in a playful way - no wagging fingers, just a roll of the dice.

There was a huge response to “Meltdown” even beyond schools in Germany. Design blogs, game magazines, and social networks spread news of the game around the globe. Within just a few days, Gruner + Jahr received over 2,000 enquiries – from teachers, game producers, journalists, and ordinary people all over the world. In the GEOlino online shop, the first edition of “Meltdown” sold out very quickly. Since the first edition went on sale, Global games manufacturer, Ravensburger, discovered “Meltdown” and is now planning to release it in over 50 countries. Soon children all over the world will be learning about the effects of global warming in a playful way - a wildly successful result.