In a time when the environmental causes have such a huge impact in the collective consciousness, Esposende Ambiente decided to turn words into actions, by opening an innovative Environmental Education Center.

Being Esposende a city characterized by its beautiful landscapes, abundant fauna and flora and tourism-driven economy, the Environmental Education Center couldn’t be located anywhere else.
Although, what really makes it stand apart is how intuitively its visitors can interact with contents related with the protection of natural resources, waste treatment, climate changes, among others.
Throughout this amusing journey, people can interact with solutions like an interactive timeline that explores the Cávado river, an interactive floor, a multitouch table, an interactive wall for garbage separation, wall modules with environment related games, an interactive videowall, and much more.

Esposende Ambiente is a public company with four main responsibilities: collection and wastewater treatment, collection and disposal of solid waste, cleaning and sanitation and the creation and preservation of green spaces.

Within their facilities is included a space dedicated to the environmental education of the general population. So, Esposende Ambiente decided to create a physical space  where people could learn more about the environment.
The facility is located in an old farm, where the building was rebuilt and restored using environment friendly materials, and the looks of both the facade and interiors were kept intact.
Inside the old building, they wanted visitors to discover the environmental aspects of the region, such as the biodiversity, the natural heritage (river, forest), what is being made in terms of waste management and what can be seen and discovered in the region. Esposende Ambiente respects a lot the environment and the cultural and natural heritage of  the region, but at the same time is a very modern and innovative company in its areas of expertise.
So, they wanted this Environmental Education Center to be just like that, to preserve the natural heritage in an interactive and engaging way. 

Esposende Ambiente required the space to be accurate in its contents, to be entertaining and engaging and to be innovative. It also had to be usable by people with physical disabilities.

They also wanted to stay in control of the contents management, so the creation of back-offices for most of the equipments was a necessity.
Monitoring maintenance was also requested, and to do that effectively, we setup a server connected to all equipments, that allows remote monitoring for critical aspects, such as temperature, uptime, display monitoring, amongst other items.
The interactive journey has various stages. As an introduction, “action” begins in a reception area, moving to an exhibition entry, and then a 3D video welcomes everyone to the Environmental Education Center.
After that, people are invited to explore different issues related to the environment and its protection, by going through the Waste management, Biodiversity, Water and Energy and climate changes areas.
This center’s mascots are present throughout all the interactive exhibition, helping to promote environmental values in a fun and memorable way.

When visitors enter the center, right next to the reception, there is a DISPLAX Interactive Tower.

In this equipment, visitors can view more information about this exhibition and its different areas, touristic information about Esposende and its points of interest, news, a calendar of events, contacts and also give feedback or address questions about the city or the Environmental Education Center.
To emphasize the beauty of Esposende, the background displays a selection of some of its outstanding landscapes.
This is just the perfect help to plan your visit to the center’s facilities and exhibition and, after that, to enjoy the attractions of Esposende’s region, by exploring the two interactive maps included  in this app.

Still in the reception, next to an area dedicated to expositions, there is a wall module that allows the visitor to take a picture of himself, draw and paint on it, chose a frame, and then send it to a friend’s email, with a message attached.
It’s a great solution to share with friends, relatives or even himself a digital memory and souvenir of the thrilling interactive experience that is about to begin. The postcard of the digital era!

After a pleasant walk from the reception area to the building that houses the interactive exhibition, visitors are welcomed by an interactive floor that sets a first impression of what they are about to experience.

Contents related to nature and environmental issues are displayed, such as fishes, birds, bugs, flowers, garbage, clouds and sea, with which you can interact just by walking and moving around.

The center’s mascots welcome visitors and explain what they are going to learn in each area, in a 3D movie. Each mascot represents a specific subject (recycling and waste, energy, water and forest).

This movie was specifically developed  to be visible not only from people who are directly in front of the display, but also from a side perspective. So, about 15 people can watch it together.

Starting with the Waste management area, fun begins with DISPLAX Crayon Wall, an interactive wall module with educational games for children.

The contents aim to teach important concepts of life in society to kids, while they’re playing.
This solution includes a “letters soup” game, in which children should find words like “reduce”, “reuse” and “recycle” , a “quiz” with several questions about waste management, and a “memory” game, where kids have to find the pairs of cards with the same waste related images.

Now, it’s time to play with DISPLAX Moovit Wall, a huge interactive wall with a 2,5 m x 2 m projection area and gesture recognition.
While waste falls from the sky, people have to lead it to the correct bin where it should fall, by waving their arms.
What a nice way of learning basic recycling principals, and doing some exercise at the same time! 

Having learned what should be done in terms of waste management, visitors move to the next area, Biodiversity.

Here, the goal is to show the diversity of life forms in the region.
First, visitors find an interactive videowall with several videos related to the Esposende’s region natural heritage (fauna, flora, forest, river, sea). All videos are displayed simultaneously, and when a user touches one of them, it starts playing in full screen mode.

The other solution dedicated to Biodiversity is DISPLAX Showcase, a table with two interactive showcase shelves on the sides. In those shelves, there are objects that represent different aspects of the Biodiversity (mockups of animals and plants), and when users click on the buttons above those objects, information about the corresponding animals or plants is displayed. This LCD is also interactive, so that users can browse the multimedia application and explore more information (text, images and videos).
The mockups consist in representations of each Animal Group (Mammals, Reptiles, Birds, Fish, Amphibians, Marine Invertebrates, Terrestrial Invertebrates) and Plants and Algae.

Cávado is a very important river that flows into the sea in Esposende. It plays a huge role in the region’s ecosystem, and Esposende Ambiente wanted to highlight that importance in this Environmental Education Center.

In this area, with Water as the main theme, there’s a 9 meters long wall with a representation of the river from the source to the mouth, where it flows into the sea.
On that wall, there’s a rail structure with an interactive LCD that moves across all its length, horizontally and vertically. The contents shown on that LCD, that match exactly the image on the wall and can be manipulated through touch, are images, videos and explanations of what happens at any given part of the course, as well as what kind of animals, fishes and birds exist along the way.
This application has a child and an adult mode, so that users can adapt the contents to their height and age.

The last area of this exhibition intends to raise awareness for the Energy and climate changes issues, by explaining what can and need to be done to save our planet.

There, you will find DISPLAX Shuttle, a multitouch table with some collaborative contents.
The application features an animated version of a city, which includes educational games that ask visitors to, through intuitive touch gestures, produce electricity while rotating the wind farms’ propellers, clean the smoke expelled from a factory, move bicycles by rotating their wheels, turn off street light poles and optimize a house’s energy efficiency through its sun orientation.
The aim of all games is to have the smallest carbon footprint possible.

As the final attraction of this interactive journey, there’s Human DJ. This is a collaborative solution that enables visitors to make music in group, by touching each other while holding special joysticks.
Using the electromagnetic fields generated by human bodies, these joysticks allow people to hear different nature’s sounds.
So, you can make music and build a nature’s symphony, just by touching your friends!

MOST INAVATIVE VISITOR ATTRACTION 2012
FINALIST


Esposende Environmental Education Center was nominated in the Most InAVative Visitor Attraction category of InAVation Awards 2012.

This prize is promoted by InAVate, a prestigious British magazine in the audiovisual, technology and interactivity sectors.

“Raise educational and environmental awareness in the community is one of the challenges that the city of Esposende has taken for over a decade and a half, targeting audiences to teach within the different themes of the environment.
This has been an evolutionary process that has been growing and also a learning process on our part, which meant that we were gradually adapting working methods to the growing needs of our stakeholders.
In this context, and in a world completely dominated by technology, it would be impossible not try to walk in that direction thus the desire to enhance our Environmental Education Center with the installation of interactive content. Our goal was to allow all users an effective participation in the learning process, with clear knowledge acquisition.
The contribution of EDIGMA was crucial, because with their expertise, professionalism, versatility and availability, together we created a successful project.
We invite everyone to visit our center and in particular its interactive exhibition. You will certainly be delighted!”

Alexandra Roeger, Member of the Board, Esposende Ambiente