Developing science tabletop games: ‘Catan’® and global warming

Illingworth, Sam; Wake, Paul

doi:10.22323/2.18040204

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Basically, board games can promote higher-order thinking skills (Kuo & Hsu, 2020). Science board games have been shown to help students understand computational thinking (Wangenheim et al, 2019) and complex environmental issues (Fjaellingsdal & Klöckner, 2020) such as global warming (Illingworth & Wake, 2019). In fact, science board games have been shown to help students understand complex concepts better than similar digital games.…”

Section: Engaged Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In comparison to digital games, science board games offer an ease of communication (Erb, 2015). In CATAN: GLOBAL WARMING, researchers found that the board game fostered scientific dialogue among the players (Illingworth & Wake, 2019). When compared to digital games, board games can afford more intensive communication patterns among players (Erb, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“What if We Explore…” Promoting Engaged Learning and Collaboration with MOUNTAIN RESCUE

Bressler

Tutwiler

Siebert-Evenstone

et al. 2022

Simulation & Gaming

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Background According to the Committee on STEM Education, K-12 science students need access to learning experiences that promote collaboration and engagement. To fill that void, we need to develop activities that stimulate engaged learning and scaffold effective collaboration. K-12 teacher candidates see value in utilizing games for this purpose. Specifically, tabletop science games can help teachers engage students in science learning and scaffold collaboration. Aim For this study, we designed a collaborative, STEM-themed card game called MOUNTAIN RESCUE and explored its capacity to promote engaged learning and collaboration. Method Four groups of STEM campers (n = 14) in a suburban Mid-Atlantic region played MOUNTAIN RESCUE. All groups had a mix of boys and girls. Play-testers ranged from 10–13 years old. The tabletop game took approximately 30-minutes. During gameplay, players embodied unique STEM roles: physicist, chemist, structural engineer, and electrical engineer. They collaborated to solve challenges related to electricity, physics, chemistry, and engineering design. Discourse was audio-recorded throughout gameplay. Immediately after gameplay, self-report survey data were collected to assess flow and perceptions of collaborative learning. Results Findings demonstrated that the game promoted engagement and collaboration. Specifically, students had a flow-like experience and felt positively about the game's value for collaborative learning. Utterances demonstrating active engagement and constructive thinking became more group-focused over time. Conclusion This study contributes to science education by demonstrating potential benefits of a well-designed, low-tech, science learning environment or—in other words—a tabletop game.

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Section: Engaged Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What if We Explore…” Promoting Engaged Learning and Collaboration with MOUNTAIN RESCUE

Bressler

Tutwiler

Siebert-Evenstone

et al. 2022

Simulation & Gaming

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…As suggested by Ampatzidou and Gugerell (2019), we used different types of testers for distinctive purposes in order to get the most out of the participatory design process (see Lanezki, Siemer, and Wehkamp 2020). Environmental scientists and other topic experts were used to peer review the presented scientific content throughout the design process (Illingworth and Wake 2019). Testing with our main target audience—the Finnish stakeholders in land use planners, conservation, and development—allowed us to reflect how they received our framings of the topic and to get an early user feedback on the game design (see Mildner and Mueller 2016).…”

Section: Intervention—kompensaatiopeli Offsetting Gamementioning

confidence: 99%

Offsetting Game—Framing Environmental Issues in the Design of a Serious Game

Nygren

Kankainen

Brunet

2022

Simulation & Gaming

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Background Biodiversity crisis requires researchers to reflect on tools and strategies to engage with different stakeholders. We propose that serious games can be designed to introduce stakeholders to a novel environmental policy tool and to communicate research on environmental issues. Our case is biodiversity offsetting (BDO), a novel policy tool aiming to reconcile nature conservation with other land uses. As any media, games offer certain framings of the issues they communicate about—some aspects are made more salient than others. However, frame analysis has not been widely used to analyze the design choices or the messages communicated by games. We analyze how these framings are designed into a game communicating about environmental issues. Aim To intervene in the emerging public discussion on BDO in Finland, we designed a land use board game and during the design process, played it with public and private stakeholders who would soon encounter and implement biodiversity offsetting policies in Finland. The aim of this article is to describe how our framings of BDO affected the design process and how those framings interacted with the design decisions we made. With our analysis, we want to contribute to the understanding of how framings and design choices interact in game design and how paying attention to framings is especially important for the design of SGs. Method We analyze how our framings of biodiversity offsetting and our design choices interact in game design. Our understanding of biodiversity offsetting guided our game design, but the design choices also contribute to the framing of the issue itself. Results Game design choices strongly frame the topic of the game and thus influence the function of a serious game. Thus, the framings of the topic should be considered carefully during the game design process, especially in the context of serious games.

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“…For example, when we designed a “Global Warming” scenario [ 29 ] ( Fig 3 ) for the popular game Catan [ 30 , 31 ], we aimed to create an experience for our audience (regular gamers) that enabled them to revisit a familiar game but which invited them to reconsider the game’s themes of “settlement” (national expansion and resourcing) in the context of runaway global warming effects. In doing so, we were also inspired by the work of others who had successfully adapted Catan to engage gamers on topics ranging from sustainability [ 32 ] to colonialism [ 33 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%