Computer-supported games and role plays in teaching water management

Abstract

Abstract. There is an increasing demand for an interdisciplinary approach in teaching water management. Computersupported games and role plays offer the potential of creating an environment in which different disciplines come together and in which students are challenged to develop integrated understanding. Two examples are discussed. The River Basin Game is a common-pool resource game in which participants experience the risk of over-abstractions of water in a river basin and learn how this risk relates to the complexity of the system, the conflict between individual and group optimums and the difficulty in achieving good cooperation. The Globalization of Water Role Play makes participants familiar with the global dimension of water management by letting them experience how national governments can integrate considerations of water scarcity and domestic water productivities into decisions on international trade in commodities like food, cotton and bio-energy. The two examples illustrate that play sessions inspire participants to think about the functioning of systems as a whole and to develop good cooperative courses of action, whereby both uncertainties about the system and the presence of different values and perspectives among participants play a role.

Exploring the Potential Impact of Serious Games on Social Learning and Stakeholder Collaborations for Transboundary Watershed Management of the St. Lawrence River Basin

“…One promising category involves serious games that have the ability to encourage social learning. The concept of simultaneously addressing the techno-physical complexities of a system (i.e., the underlying physical elements of the system) and the socio-political complexities (i.e., the non-linear agencies of the stakeholder network) via an integrated simulation, or serious game, is very appealing [16,53,54].…”

Incorporating student-centered approaches into catchment hydrology teaching: a review and synthesis

“…Which student-centered strategies are most suitable for which subject matter? What is the role of novel modes of content delivery -for example through the use of computer games (Hoekstra, 2012;Seibert and Vis, 2012) -in bridging the gap between student-and teacher-centered learning? How can teaching programs and student outcomes be evaluated to measure the success of different educational approaches?…”

Reframing hydrology education to solve coupled human and environmental problems

“…We argue that much canonical hydrological training does little to foster this kind of wide dynamic understanding, which future hydrologists will need in order to assume a prominent, effective role in evaluating and promoting sustainability. The burgeoning paradigm of ecohydrology aims to demonstrate dynamic linkages between hydrological and ecological processes (see McClain et al, 2012 in this special issue), while game theory-based decision-making games give students a better appreciation of the principles and challenges of water management from the perspective of social theories regarding public goods and common pool resources (see Hoekstra, 2012;Rusca et al, 2012;Siebert and Vis, 2012 in this special issue). The wide dynamic human-environment perspective spans these innovations in hydrology education, and can serve as an umbrella paradigm representing the reality that hydrological, ecological, and social dimensions are complex, interconnected, and dynamic.…”