Are you Climate Smart?

Are you climate smart?

The purpose of the Climate Smart platform and the capstone iAdapt serious game is to use diverse and dynamic interventions to convey key concepts of climate adaptation planning to learners in an engaging way, empowering them to participate in planning for their climate futures. The target demographic is secondary school children aged 15 - 18, though the materials and game can be played by anyone.

Climate Smart supports climate action in multiple ways. It introduces young people (or any learner) to the major parameters of climate change adaptation. It educates players about the multi-phased process of planning for climate change adaptation from establishing interventions, through consultation to revision and adoption. It presents a range of advantages and disadvantages of diverse adaptation interventions, from flood sensors to citizen assemblies, from the perspectives of different stakeholders. It exposes players to real time water level data and incorporates state of the art flood predictions for Dublin; bringing the stark challenges of climate change into a familiar setting.

Both climate change and low citizen engagement can be categorised as “wicked problems” which means that they are both arenas of action which are complex and hard to solve. As dynamic processes it is unlikely that either will be permanently solved by a single response, with interventions needing to be ongoing and relevant to the context in which they are applied. Attempting to engage people in climate change adaptation is then undoubtedly fraught with challenges. Technology-led initiatives often under-estimate the difficulties inherent in engaging people and communities. In the face of an ever-increasing likelihood of extreme climate events, these difficulties increase risks for already-vulnerable publics, particularly those who are marginalised or disenfranchised from policymaking.

The iAdapt game

You play as the newly-elected mayor of Dublin in the year 2045. The changing climate means the city is at increased risk of flooding, with a flood event now likely to occur each year. You must use your budget to defend the city from pluvial, fluvial, and coastal flooding using a mixture of grey, green and blue, mixed, and policy interventions. Fail to build effective flood defences, or make too many unpopular decisions, and you’ll be removed from office, ending the game early. A key feature of the game is the use of real-world modelled flood extents, and actually-existing flood defence mechanisms and interventions, in particular the river level sensors deployed by Dublin City Council.

With iAdapt we face head-on the coincidence of these two arenas of wicked problems—climate change adaptation and low citizen engagement—and present a novel approach to increasing engagement in strategic planning for climate change adaptation, based on the concept of “serious games”. IAdapt provides an entertaining mechanism for educating young people whilst also engaging them in discussions about planning for climate change adaptation and the roles and responsibilities they might adopt to play a role in climate adaptation processes. Serious games have been shown to be particularly effective at bridging this gap. The iAdapt game utilises a range of spatial data and centres on a dynamic map of Dublin which can be zoomed in or out and tilted. Adaptation interventions selected in the game are located on this map and random flood inundations take place every round based on state of the art flood prediction data. The game and associated educational materials have been co-designed by experts and target audience cohorts and are unique in that the data and solutions are place-based, so that the game and its components resonate with participants in Ireland.

Impact

Climate Smart has been shown to improve awareness and knowledge about climate change adaptation in previous testing (see Table 1 at the end of this document). The Climate Smart platform is active and is currently being trialled in 14 schools with more than 400 students participating in 2100 workshops. The entire climate smart game and resources will be subject to independent assessment at the end of this year and results disseminated.

Next Steps

Dependent upon additional funding, we hope the platform will be rolled out nationwide in Ireland during 2023, working in collaboration with An Taisce (Irish National Trust - NGO) and their Environmental Education Unit. We would also like to do more versions of the Dublin iAdapt game, for other cities and locations in Ireland and beyond.

We would welcome discussions with anyone who is interested in engaging with the Climate Smart resources or who is also seeking to expand education for climate change adaptation internationally. We’d like to collaborate for climate resilience!

Project publications (all open access)

Just adapt: Engaging disadvantaged young people in planning for climate adaptation

AR Davies, S Hügel

Politics and Governance 9 (2), 100-111

Playing for Keeps: Designing Serious Games for Climate Adaptation Planning Education With Young People

S Hügel, AR Davies

Urban Planning 7 (2)

Public participation, engagement, and climate change adaptation: A review of the research literature

S Hügel, AR Davies

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 11 (4), e645