Remco

Game-example: Gifts of Culture

Gifts of Culture is a board game role-playing simulation of a diverse cultural community. Players become the representatives of various groups living in the flood-prone valley. Though they represent various views and ideals, they all have the same goal – for their group to have a better life. How will they achieve that with the constant threat of flood looming above their heads?

Each of the actions players can undertake has its advantages and disadvantages. Information sharing and collaboration can greatly improve their outcomes, however, diverse cultural backgrounds make it very difficult.

The Gift of Culture allows players to experience how cultural differences can lead to troubles but at the same time they can also be helpful. Play and use the “gift of culture” to improve community flood resilience.

Players understand different ways how cultural factors affect disaster preparedness and ability to cope.

Players improve collaboration and information sharing skills, especially in regards of collaboration between organizations and individuals representing diverse cultural backgrounds leading to improved disaster resilience

Players increase their understanding of disaster risk for heterogeneous cultural backgrounds.

Students search the internet for ‘Green StartUps’ with innovations that can be useful for the school (or personal life). Example: SmartSkin (a coating that changes windows into solar panels and still can be looked through).

Small groups, choose an item to work on. They discuss this item with the school’s facility manager and try to communicate with the owner of the StartUp to talk about the start up process: how, why, when, what will the future be, expected cost etc.

Students then report back to the facility manager with a strong emphasis on the ecological gain and start calculations: what would it cost to implement the innovation? The final report is sent to the facility manager; or, even better: presented to them.

Game-example: The World’s Future

The game is an interactive role-playing simulation game which enables players to face the great challenges of our time: How can we use limited resources to achieve the goals? Is it possible to meet competing needs without trade-offs? Can food production provide for all without negative effects on essential natural ecosystems? How can we increase our efforts in climate change mitigation, while at the same time generating enough energy for all? And what role do we – consumers, producers, governments and NGOs – play in the implementation of the goals?

Learners can shape the future of this micro-world and improve the wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants. Dive into the role of a consumer, an energy or food producer, a federal government or an organization of civil society and strive for the global goals together.

Students explore the ‘smartcitiesworld’ website, looking for innovations that meet a need for their school or personal life and are ecologically an improvement. Examples from the site: ‘modular construction, home-sharing platforms and rental tools could be the answer to housing challenges’; ‘the public must be fully engaged in the UK’s net-zero transition’.

Discuss and/or research in personal life and/or school: ‘how do I deal with home-, car- or tool- etc. sharing? How can I improve my behaviour on that? How can I diminish my energy consumption, even try to get it net-zero? What are possibilities in my school when it comes to sharing car, bike, tools etc.? How can the school support students housing by setting up modular apartment constructions? Is my school net-zero? Can we diminish energy consumption?

Questions like that lead to action plans – and action plans lead to action!
If the ‘smartcitiesworld’ website does not give enough clues to work with, students can look for other sites (Het Groene Brein, Green Deals etc.).

The results of the research, raised questions, action plans and (hopefully and eventually) actions are evaluated. It is important to include as many stakeholders as possible in the process!

Game-example: DisCoord – The Disaster Coordination game

DisCoord is a strategy and role-playing game in which each of the five players embodies a local leader, called Local Chairperson 3 (LC3) in Uganda. Each player manages a Sub-County which is composed of 15 villages. Together the five Sub-Counties form a District, which therefore has to be managed jointly by the 5 players.  As a Sub-County leader, a player must ensure that the population is satisfied or happy with his/her leadership. Since population is growing, floods and landslides frequently occur, and money is in permanent short supply. The players need to discuss and interact with each other as policies need to be proposed and enacted at district level through a majority vote.

The strength of the game lies in its strong connection with the daily reality of farmer communities in Uganda, as well as in its combination of fixed game rules with random features and sufficient flexibility for players to define their own course of action. Players quickly get along with the game rules and can therefore start experimenting different strategies during the game. Different gameplays may lead to very different outcomes at the end of the game. While the game can be played without facilitator by players that are used to board games (and reading game rules), the presence of a facilitator is recommended if the game is being played with policy makers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Small group activity: use ‘placemat’ methodology: Each member writes down his/her favourite items in their room at home. Compared together highlighting similarities.

The group chooses one of the similar items (e.g. laptop, bookshelf, smartphone, pictures).

Group research information about that item e.g. production, transport, trading, labour, added value; and the effects on people (e.g. Who produces, transports and in what circumstances?), planet (e.g. What are the ecological effects?) and economy (e.g. Who benefits? Who loses?).
Group discussion on positive and negative impact of the item. Brainstorm how to turn the negatives into positives and reflect on the effects these changes would have on the personal life of the group members (higher prices, different colours/ shapes; less sophisticated).

Possible further activities

Individually, identify 2 decisions that you have made as a worker and/or consumer – one that you consider good/successful and one that did not go so well. Reflect on these decisions and identify what helped you make them and what the alternative choices were. Then encourage learners to think about decision-making process and how this can be implemented taking gender issues into consideration. Based on this analysis, make a list of what you think helps people make good decisions (e.g. quality of information, time available, prior experience, advice from others).

Students are divided into three groups to work on different scenarios and reveal their implications. One group works with the business as usual scenario (energy production and consumption follow the same trends as today). Another group works with a scenario based on the spread of solar energy in which consumption remains the same as today, while the third group works with a scenario in which energy consumption is considerably reduced. The three groups present findings and discuss together what would be the best scenario and route to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to avoid the 2ºC temperature increase by 2100.

Students then think of three steps/decisions to make in order to work towards this scenario. Discuss why this step and no other? What are the values underpinning this decision? Are there any dilemmas embedded in this step?

Individually, select a few items that you have either consumed, used, bought or had bought for you over the last week. For each item, consider its environmental and social impact and compare this impact with that of a substitute product.

Students divide into groups. Each group imagines a family in a different socio-economic class and role-plays typical behaviour. Groups share and discuss and reflect on the causes and implications of different behaviours identified. As a final activity, the teacher invites learners to situate themselves in a situation of energy poverty and collectively reflect on their feelings and emotions. Learners then relate their own daily behaviour with one of the performances. Then, le