“Stickier” learning through gameplay: an effective approach to climate change education

As the impacts of climate change grow, we need better ways to raise awareness and motivate action. Here we assess the effectiveness of an Arctic climate change card game in comparison with the more conventional approach of reading an illustrated article. In-person assessments with control/reading and treatment/game groups (N = 41), were followed four weeks later with a survey. The game was found to be as effective as the article in teaching content of the impacts of climate change over the short term, and was more effective than the article in long-term retention of new information. Game players also had higher levels of engagement and perceptions that they knew ways to help protect Arctic ecosystems. They were also more likely to recommend the game to friends or family than those in the control group were likely to recommend the article to friends or family. As we consider ways to broaden engagement with climate change, we should include games in our portfolio of approaches

The practice of responsible research and innovation in “climate engineering”

Sunlight reflection and carbon removal proposals for “climate engineering” (CE) confront governance challenges that many emerging technologies face: their futures are uncertain, and by the time one can discern their shape or impacts, vested interests may block regulation, and publics are often left out of decision-making about them. In response to these challenges, “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) has emerged as a framework to critique and correct for technocratic governance of emerging technologies, and CE has emerged as a prime case of where it can be helpfully applied. However, a critical lens is rarely applied to RRI itself. In this review, we first survey how RRI thinking has already been applied to both carbon removal and sunlight reflection methods for climate intervention. We examine how RRI is employed in four types of activities: Assessment processes and reports, principles and protocols for research governance, critical mappings of research, and deliberative and futuring engagements. Drawing upon this review, we identify tensions in RRI practice, including whether RRI forms or informs choices, the positionalities of RRI practitioners, and ways in which RRI activities enable or disable particular climate interventions. Finally, we recommend that RRI should situate CE within the long arc of sociotechnical proposals for addressing climate change, more actively connect interrogations of the knowledge economy with reparative engagements, include local or actor-specific contexts, design authoritative assessments grounded in RRI, and go beyond treating critique and engagement as “de facto” governance

Role-play Simulations for Climate Change Adaptation Education and Engagement

In order to effectively adapt to climate change, public officials and other stakeholders need to rapidly enhance their understanding of local risks and ability to collaboratively and adaptively respond. We argue that science-based role-play simulation exercises, a type of ‘serious game’ involving face-to-face mock decision-making, have considerable potential as education and engagement tools for enhancing readiness to adapt. Prior research suggests role-play simulations and other serious games can foster public learning and encourage collective action in public policy-making contexts. However, the effectiveness of such exercises in the context of climate change adaptation education and engagement has heretofore been underexplored. We share results from two research projects that demonstrate the effectiveness of role-play simulations in cultivating climate change adaptation literacy, enhancing collaborative capacity, and facilitating social learning. Based on our findings, we suggest such exercises should be more widely embraced as part of adaptation professionals\u27 education and engagement tool-kits