Parsons The New School of Design's PETLab has teamed up with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre to develop a set of games about disaster preparedness in the face of flooding, drought and other climate change related issues. The website for the project is here. The initiative, which we call "Games for Disaster Preparedness", are playful, often non-digital activities that actively engage participants in experiential learning, through the simulation of complex decisions with consequences. In other words: fun capacity building.
The audience for these games includes Red Cross staff and volunteers, climate scientists, politicians, and people around the world facing the increasingly catastrophic effects of climate change-related disasters. The games can be played in "lo-fi" settings such as beaches and villages around the world where these disasters often cause extensive casualties and hardship. The goals for each game are to raise awareness about climate-related disasters, model and address possible actions and their outcomes, and ultimately lead to better decisionÐmaking in crisis situations.
Here's a video of one of our games in action:
