Beyond the Stars

A world-first health education program for the Pacific Islands.

  • Fiji, Pacific Islands
  • 12
    teachers
  • 300+
    children
  • A screenshot from Beyond the Stars mobile game shows a health bar and a map of three islands - one healthy and two unhealthy - with mini games to be played.
  • Team member Aiyana Merlo from creative technology agency S1T2 shows the Beyond the Stars game to children in Fiji.
  • A Fijian child uses a HTC Vive virtual reality headset to experience Beyond the Stars VR.
  • Screenshot from the animated film played at the beginning of the Beyond the Stars health education program.
  • Two Fijian children look at the Beyond the Stars storybook in class during the Pacific Islands pilot.
  • A Fijian child uses a tablet to play a mini game in the Beyond the Stars mobile game during the school pilot program in the Pacific Islands.
  • A screenshot from Beyond the Stars VR shows five guardian statues in at night in a Pacific Islands virtual reality environment.
  • A Fijian child holds up the storybook from education program Beyond the Stars.
  • Screenshot from Beyond the Stars mobile game shows a character walking around a stylised island environment.
  • S1T2 team member Aiyana Merlo talks to a Fijian child using Beyond the Stars interactive game in class.

Non-communicable diseases or NCDs are a huge problem in the Pacific Islands, resulting in more than 70% of deaths across the region. A few years ago, we were asked to see if we could use storytelling and creative technology to help. The result was Beyond the Stars: an innovative health education program bringing together film, virtual reality, storybooks and interactive games to inspire healthy eating habits in school children across the Pacific Islands.

Understanding the situation

Research

Take a look at the statistics and it’s clear that NCDs like diabetes, obesity and heart disease are a huge problem. Often caused by preventable factors such as diet and physical activity, more than 36 million people worldwide die as a result of NCDs each year. But if we were going to make a real difference, we’d need to understand more than the numbers.

Team member Aiyana Merlo from creative technology agency S1T2 shows prototype of the Beyond the Stars storybook to Fijian school children.

We worked with international experts across education, nutrition and behaviour change, and with people on the ground in Fiji to develop the program into something that was both educationally sound and culturally appropriate. Indeed, in the two years it took to create Beyond the Stars, we spent the equivalent of three months on the ground working with local experts, teachers and children to better understand the problem and how best to address it.

Example of the animated Beyond the Stars game.

Designing for real change

Program

As we embarked on this collaborative process of design and development, we also started planning how our education program might foster actual change. From the very beginning, we worked with monitoring and evaluation (M&E) experts to develop a Theory of Change. This evaluation framework would help ensure whatever we created had the highest chance of real impact.

This process involved defining our three main goals for the Beyond the Stars program. Achieving these goals would not only demonstrate the potential impact of our approach to NCDs, but also give us invaluable insights into how this kind of creative technology program could scale into the future. With these goals in mind, we could develop the rest of the program.

A diagram showing the Theory of Change developed to guide the Beyond the Stars health education program in the Pacific Islands.
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Demonstrate how storytelling and technology are an effective method for educating children and fostering behaviour change.
Increase children’s knowledge of and awareness about healthy and local food options.
Inspire a shift in children’s dietary preferences towards healthy food.

Discover the story world

Animated Film

Beyond the Stars begins with an animated film. Shown at the beginning of the education program, this film introduces children to the mythical story world. With bright, energetic visuals that extend Pacific Islands traditions of oral storytelling, the film frames broader ideas about health and nutrition within a magical, fantasy world for children to explore.

Within this world, children learn about how, long ago, their ancestors lived in harmony with magical guardians who knew the secrets of nature. They also learn that over time, those secrets have been lost and both the land and the people have become sick. But hope is not lost – one day, a brave young hero may rediscover the guardians’ secrets and bring health and happiness back to the land.

Become a hero through virtual reality

Virtual Reality

Next, children are invited to explore the magical world of Beyond the Stars through a virtual reality (VR) experience. Here, children are asked to become the hero of their own story. This choice, to accept their quest and take control of the narrative, marks the beginning of their personal learning journey.

The virtual reality experience gives children a vital experience of immersion and agency. This helps foster an emotional connection with the story, heightening their engagement with future learning as they progress through the rest of the education program.

Explore education through story

Storybook

At the end of their virtual reality experience, children are presented with their own copy of the Beyond the Stars storybook. Appearing in both the virtual and real worlds, the storybook helps children to realise that what they learn in the fictional world could also affect their own lives.

A Fijian school child uses crayons to complete a storybook activity as part of the Beyond the Stars health education program

Throughout the storybook, children are invited to explore different aspects of the story as they learn about healthy eating, physical education and the environment. Supported by example lesson plans, the Beyond the Stars storybook combines curriculum, national policies and global recommendations into a vibrant learning resource that is both easy and fun to use in the classroom.

An image of Chapter One in the Beyond the Stars storybook shows a scrapbook of story and educational information designed to appeal to.

Learn through interactive games

Interactive Game

The final piece of the Beyond the Stars education program is the mobile game. Played on smart devices, this interactive, story-driven game uses tangential learning to provide a fun, child-driven approach to education. This approach helps encourage children to actively participate in a more personal and effective learning process.

Throughout the interactive game, children must work to keep their village healthy while also travelling to other islands on their quest. These new islands feature mini games that allow children to explore educational content from different angles in a practical yet safe environment, reinforcing and personalising their learning.

Bringing everything together

Pilot Program

With each of these elements completed, it was time to test. To do that, we launched a pilot program with 12 teachers and 300+ children in 9 primary schools across urban, rural and remote areas of Fiji. Supported by extensive teacher training, the pilot saw teachers and children use the full Beyond the Stars creative technology program at least twice a week for five weeks.

This pilot was backed by a comprehensive measurement and evaluation process that included child surveys, interviews with parents and teachers, data collected through the interactive game, and reviews from our own team. Having this wide array of different datasets would give us the ability to cross-check results, and ultimately have more confidence in our findings.

  • Team member Aiyana Merlo from creative technology agency S1T2 talks with three Fijian children about the Beyond the Stars storybook.
  • An S1T2 team member from Fiji interviews a Fijian child at the end of the Beyond the Stars pilot.
  • S1T2 team member Aiyana Merlo conducts teacher training for the Beyond the Stars program.
  • An S1T2 team member holds a demonstration session for the Beyond the Stars mobile game with a group of school children in the Pacific Islands.
  • Classroom of Fijian children hold up the Beyond the Stars storybook.
  • Team member from creative agency S1T2 watches as a Fijian child experiences Beyond the Stars virtual reality.
  • Stack of Beyond the Stars printed teacher training materials in a Fijian classroom.
  • Fijian child uses monitoring and evaluation materials during testing of the Beyond the Stars program pilot.

Promising results for a bright future

Results

At the end of the pilot, once the data collection and analysis was complete, we saw some fantastic results. Looking at the quantitative child surveys, we found that children were not only more able to identify between healthy and unhealthy foods, they were also significantly more likely to want to eat healthy foods. These results were supported by qualitative surveys with both teachers and parents.

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Children showed an average 11% increase in their ability to identify healthy and unhealthy foods.
Children were, on average, 14% more likely to want to eat healthy foods, and 37-58% less likely to want to eat unhealthy foods.
“The program really helped my child because he was able to identify the difference between healthy and unhealthy food.” (Participating parent)

From the qualitative interviews, we found that children appeared to have experienced a shift not just in their attitudes towards healthy foods, but in their behaviours as well. While teachers reported a noticeable change in what children were eating at school, parents also suggested that the program had inspired them to rethink the kinds of foods they were eating at home.

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78% of teachers observed a positive change in children’s attitudes towards and even behaviours around healthy eating.
88% of parents reported that BTS had changed their own attitudes and behaviours around eating habits and food preparation.
“It really helped them. For example my son wanted me to change his lunch that I prepared everyday to be balanced or to eat healthy food everyday.” (Participating parent)

And finally, our approach of using story and creative technology was found to be a promising new way of teaching and inspiring healthy habits. Indeed, many teachers reported that Beyond the Stars was not only more effective than their usual teaching methods, but that their school was already using its approach in other subjects and year groups.

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67% of teachers suggested that the program was significantly more effective than traditional teaching methods.
78% of teachers reported having already begun to use the program and its educational approach in other areas of teaching.
“I believe that using technology and stories together, hand-in-hand, they will really help the children learn and improve their learning in this aspect of this new age and era.” (Participating teacher)

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Cropped render of an island village.

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