Abstract:A growing body of research indicates that effective science-policy interactions demand novel approaches, especially in policy domains with long time horizons like climate change. Serious games offer promising opportunities in this regard, but empirical research on game effects and games’ effectiveness in supporting science-policy engagement remains limited. We investigated the effects of a role-playing simulation game on risk perceptions associated with climate tipping points among a knowledgeable and engaged … Show more
“…The explorative nature of this study allowed for the pre-service teachers to come with their own thoughts about how the game conveys climate change, including its uncertainties. Though other approaches have documented learning effects on climate change uncertainty particularly for simulation games, for example on possible tipping points (van Beek et al, 2022) and the differences between uncertainty due to natural fluctuations and human-induced climate change in water management (van Pelt et al, 2015), this study has found that pre-service teachers addressed a wide range of topics related to climate change uncertainty in response to questions regarding board games. Perhaps coloured by the Norwegian national elections being held some days prior to the game sessions, politics was a recurrent theme in the pre-service teachers’ discussions.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 82%
“…As such, the player is motivated to play the game again and uncover other scenarios (Schroth et al, 2014), exploring uncertainty regarding climate change measures and the future. Games, including board games and digital games, may cover a range of different climate change-related uncertainties (e.g., Caracciolo, 2022; van Beek et al, 2022; van Pelt et al, 2015; van Schaik, 2023). Figure 1.Climate change games and their representations and interpretations in the context of climate change as an issue and discourse.…”
Background This study explores what pre-service teachers identify as uncertainties within two climate board games and to what aspects of reality they relate these uncertainties, if at all. Should games be suitable resources for teaching topics related to climate change uncertainty, I expect pre-service teachers to (a) identify uncertainties within climate board games, and (b) relate these uncertainties to reality. Intervention To explore whether and how pre-service teachers identify and relate in-game uncertainties to reality, pre-service teachers played and discussed two climate board games ( Another Future and CATAN: Oil Springs Scenario). Methods A content analysis of pre-service teachers’ audio-recorded discussions about the games was conducted. First, a conventional content analysis indicated the uncertainties that they identified. Second, further analysis showed how the pre-service teachers related these uncertainties to reality. Results This study indicates that pre-service teachers identify various uncertainties from two different board games, including the occurrence/impact of catastrophes and the behaviour of players, who can ruin the game. In most cases, the pre-service teachers link these uncertainties to reality. Pre-service teachers discuss, for example, political dilemmas and interests, climate justice issues, challenges of and adaptation to possible catastrophes, and the significance of environmental activism. Discussion The research findings are discussed in relation to existing literature on uncertainty in climate change games. Teacher educators and teachers using games for education about climate change uncertainties are recommended to encourage dialogues about these uncertainties, use or take into account context, and consider games as tools for learning to live with climate change uncertainty.
“…The explorative nature of this study allowed for the pre-service teachers to come with their own thoughts about how the game conveys climate change, including its uncertainties. Though other approaches have documented learning effects on climate change uncertainty particularly for simulation games, for example on possible tipping points (van Beek et al, 2022) and the differences between uncertainty due to natural fluctuations and human-induced climate change in water management (van Pelt et al, 2015), this study has found that pre-service teachers addressed a wide range of topics related to climate change uncertainty in response to questions regarding board games. Perhaps coloured by the Norwegian national elections being held some days prior to the game sessions, politics was a recurrent theme in the pre-service teachers’ discussions.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 82%
“…As such, the player is motivated to play the game again and uncover other scenarios (Schroth et al, 2014), exploring uncertainty regarding climate change measures and the future. Games, including board games and digital games, may cover a range of different climate change-related uncertainties (e.g., Caracciolo, 2022; van Beek et al, 2022; van Pelt et al, 2015; van Schaik, 2023). Figure 1.Climate change games and their representations and interpretations in the context of climate change as an issue and discourse.…”
Background This study explores what pre-service teachers identify as uncertainties within two climate board games and to what aspects of reality they relate these uncertainties, if at all. Should games be suitable resources for teaching topics related to climate change uncertainty, I expect pre-service teachers to (a) identify uncertainties within climate board games, and (b) relate these uncertainties to reality. Intervention To explore whether and how pre-service teachers identify and relate in-game uncertainties to reality, pre-service teachers played and discussed two climate board games ( Another Future and CATAN: Oil Springs Scenario). Methods A content analysis of pre-service teachers’ audio-recorded discussions about the games was conducted. First, a conventional content analysis indicated the uncertainties that they identified. Second, further analysis showed how the pre-service teachers related these uncertainties to reality. Results This study indicates that pre-service teachers identify various uncertainties from two different board games, including the occurrence/impact of catastrophes and the behaviour of players, who can ruin the game. In most cases, the pre-service teachers link these uncertainties to reality. Pre-service teachers discuss, for example, political dilemmas and interests, climate justice issues, challenges of and adaptation to possible catastrophes, and the significance of environmental activism. Discussion The research findings are discussed in relation to existing literature on uncertainty in climate change games. Teacher educators and teachers using games for education about climate change uncertainties are recommended to encourage dialogues about these uncertainties, use or take into account context, and consider games as tools for learning to live with climate change uncertainty.
“…Social media has shown promise for increasing the awareness of climate change in general (Mavrodieva et al, 2019), and with no relationship between the use of social media and awareness of climate tipping points found here, its potential appears so far untapped. Other possibilities include serious gaming, which has been shown to reduce the psychological distance of climate tipping points and provide effective science-policy engagement tools (Van Beek et al, 2022).…”
Coverage of climate tipping points has rapidly increased over the past 20 years. Despite this upsurge, there has been precious little research into how the public perceives these abrupt and/or irreversible large-scale risks. This article provides a nationally representative view on public perceptions of climate tipping points and possible societal responses to them ( n = 1773). Developing a mixed-methods survey with cultural cognition theory, it shows that awareness among the British public is low. The public is doubtful about the future effectiveness of humanity’s response to climate change in general, and significantly more doubtful about its response to tipping points specifically. Significantly more people with an egalitarian worldview judge tipping points likely to be crossed and to be a significant threat to humanity. All possible societal responses received strong support. The article ends by considering the prospects for ‘cultural tipping elements’ to tip support for climate policies across divergent cultural worldviews.
“…These nonlinear changes are closely associated with the nonlinear changes in climatic factors or human activities. Previous studies have reported that the climate [28,73,74], human impacts on the Earth's systems [75,76], and even the relationship between vegetation greenness and rainfall [77] have all experienced frequently nonlinear changes in the past. However, because of the differences in study areas, study periods, research objects (satellite-based vegetation indicators, thematic LCC, or comprehensive indicators derived from general LCCs), and the method of nonlinear diagnosis (statistical analysis of vegetation trajectories or observation of annual consequence of general LCCs), the derived results are not comparable.…”
Section: Nonlinear Evolutionary Paths Of Global Arid Ecosystemsmentioning
The pathway, direction, and potential drivers of the evolution in global arid ecosystems are of importance for maintaining the stability and sustainability of the global ecosystem. Based on the Climate Change Initiative Land Cover dataset (CCILC), in this study, four indicators of land cover change (LCC) were calculated, i.e., regional change intensity (RCI), rate of change in land cover (CR), evolutionary direction index (EDI), and artificial change percentage (ACP), to progressively derive the intensity, rate, evolutionary direction, and anthropogenic interferences of global arid ecosystems. The LCC from 1992 to 2020 and from 28 consecutive pair-years was observed at the global, continental, and country scales to examine spatiotemporal evolution in the Earth’s arid ecosystems. The following main results were obtained: (1) Global arid ecosystems experienced positive evolution despite complex LCCs and anthropogenic interferences. Cautious steps to avoid potential issues caused by rapid urbanization and farmland expansion are necessary. (2) The arid ecosystems in Australia, Central Asia, and southeastern Africa generally improved, as indicated by EDI values, but those in North America were degraded, with 41.1% of LCCs associated with urbanization or farming. The arid ecosystems in South America also deteriorated, but 83.4% of LCCs were in natural land covers. The arid ecosystems in Europe slightly improved with overall equivalent changes in natural and artificial land covers. (3) Global arid ecosystems experienced three phases of change based on RCI values: ‘intense’ (1992–1998), ‘stable’ (1998–2014), and ‘intense’ (2014–2020). In addition, two phases of evolution based on EDI values were observed: ‘deterioration’ (1992–2002) and ‘improvement’ (2002–2020). The ACP values indicated that urbanization and farming activities contributed increasingly less to global dryland change since 1992. These findings provide critical insights into the evolution of global arid ecosystems based on analyses of LCCs and will be beneficial for sustainable development of arid ecosystems worldwide within the context of ongoing climate change.
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