En-en creative part

This phase takes about 30 minutes and gives the players the opportunity to customise their Fresk and make it look fantastic. It follows the scientific part and is before the pitch.

Gameplay

This phase is pretty free. The players use pens, pencils, chalk, etc., to decorate the Fresk and they choose how they want to do that. For online versions, Mural and similar platforms have functions to import pictures, to place shapes and use different colours. The basic instructions are:

To find a title for their Fresk
To reposition the cards to make the Fresk easier to read
To trace over the lines with permanent pens.

Why a creative phase?

Quite often, the players, and sometimes even the facilitators, do not immediately understand the purpose of this phase and find it difficult to find that this phase is of no interest and have difficulty launching it. However, the creative phase allows the group:

Over a few minutes, to walk through the Fresk again and emphasize certain aspects by drawing thicker lines or different coloured arrows

To take a step back: during an hour and a half, the players were immersed in science. The creative phase calls upon a different part of the brain and enables them the see their Fresk through a different lens.
To create something unique and beautiful that they can take away with them (either the Fresk itself or a photo of it).
To memorise certain aspects: if a participant spends time adding a drawing relating to a card (e.g. a chimney for industry, a bee for transport), they will much better memorize the facts around this card.

Facilitation advice

Facilitating several tables at once

If you are facilitating several tables at once, you can choose to start a kind of competition for the best Fresk between the players. We sometimes hear the objection that bringing competition into the game is not in the spirit of the Fresk that encourages cooperation and solidarity to save the planet. This is up to you to decide.

Getting the players started

Sometimes the players find it difficult to engage with the creative phase, although it provides the opportunity to take a step back. They can be shocked by the final cards of the Fresk and can need a moment to process what they have seen. Once they have had a few minutes, do not hesitate to give them a pen and ask them to fill in some arrows. This should get them started.

Choosing a title

The choice of a title is a crucial moment of the workshop. It occurs during the creative phase, but you need to warn the players so that they remember to leave space at the top to write it. The choice of title is often the moment when the players will put words for the first time on how they feel about what they have learned. The first title ideas are often very dark (e.g. "The End of the World", "Destruction of Man by Man", etc.). Do not dissuade them from doing so, it is important that everyone expresses their feelings at this precise moment. The team will surely decide for themselves, collectively, to choose a more positive title.