Publications on KEEP COOL
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Games are increasingly proposed as an innovative way to convey scientific insights on the climate-economic system to students, non-experts, and the wider public. Yet, it is not clear if games can meet such expectations. We present quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of a simulation game for communicating and teaching international climate politics. We use a sample of over 200 students from Germany playing the simulation game KEEP COOL. We combine pre- and postgame surveys on climate politics with data on individual in-game decisions. Our key findings are that gaming increases the sense of personal responsibility, the confidence in politics for climate change mitigation, and makes more optimistic about international cooperation in climate politics. Furthermore, players that do cooperate less in the game become more optimistic about international cooperation but less confident about politics. These results are relevant for the design of future games, showing that effective climate games do not require climate-friendly in-game behavior as a winning condition. We conclude that simulation games can facilitate experiential learning about the difficulties of international climate politics and thereby complement both conventional communication and teaching methods.
Die Diskrepanz zwischen den katastrophalen Folgen eines ungebremsten Klimawandels einerseits und der relativen Tatenlosigkeit der internationalen Klimapolitik andererseits ist erklärungsbedürftig. Planspiele gelten weithin als vielversprechende Methode zur Vermittlung des Klimawandels, aber ihr Potenzial ist bislang empirisch kaum überprüft worden. Dieser Beitrag skizziert Forschungsergebnisse zur Wirksamkeit des Brettspiels KEEP COOL. Dazu werden zunächst Elemente einer politischen Bildung für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung konzeptionell erarbeitet. Anschließend wird das Potenzial von Planspielen zur Vermittlung der internationalen Klimapolitik herausgestellt und das Brettspiel KEEP COOL als idealtypisches Beispiel eingeführt. Die Wirksamkeit dieses Planspiels zur Vermittlung der internationalen Klimapolitik bestätigt sich empirisch: In einer quantitativ-empirischen Untersuchung mit über 200 Jugendlichen wird der Einfluss des Spielens auf die Ansichten zur internationalen Klimapolitik nachgewiesen.
Games are increasingly proposed as an innovative way to convey scientific insights on the climateeconomic system to students, non-experts and the wider public. Yet, it is not clear if games can meet such expectations. We present quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of a simulation game for communicating and teaching international climate politics. We use a sample of over two hundred students from Germany playing the simulation game KEEP COOL. We combine pre- and postgame surveys on climate politics with data on individual in-game decisions. Our key findings are that gaming increases the sense of personal responsibility, the confidence in politics for climate change mitigation, and makes more optimistic about international cooperation in climate politics. Furthermore, players that chose to defect in the game become more optimistic about international cooperation but less confident about politics. We conclude that simulation games can facilitate experiential learning about the difficulties of international climate politics and thereby complement both conventional communication and teaching methods.
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Climate change (CC) is an increasing societal concern for many countries around the world, and yet international negotiations continue to make slow progress. CC is an issue that is proving difficult to address using traditional approaches to information provision and education. This article reviews the development of climate and CC games and simulations in recent years as an alternative and novel way of addressing CC issues and communicating with decision makers. It gives an overview of published CC games and analyses a selection of 52 sophisticated CC games in detail. The results allow comparisons of the temporal development of climate games, actors involved in CC game development, game formats, and game subjects. Many climate games appeared around the time of the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009, with an increasing number of commercial game developers entering the field. Role-play and management games dominate the scene, but we see a rapid increase in the number of online games or games with an online component. Both local and global mitigation issues are frequently addressed and as yet few games focus on adaptation to CC.
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