Serious games: using computer simulations in a climate change roleplaying activity

Role-playing activities are a great way to help students understand the challenges involved in real-world negotiations, such as those required to combat anthropogenic climate change. But students often reach unrealistically amicable solutions, because they lack the historical context and partisan viewpoint of real negotiators. They are also often unable to verify that their negotiated solutions achieve their goals. I will discuss several strategies for making mock climate change negotiations more challenging and fun, including rigged briefing materials, scoring systems, and most notable, a real-time computer climate model which simulates the outcome of proposed climate change agreements during the negotiation.

All are welcome to attend the next Faculty Lunch talks presented by Jason Goodman, Associate Professor of Physics.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Chase Small