Role play and forum play in sustainability education
Serious game serves as a creative and interactive way to simulate real-world scenarios. It can be used in many fields, ranging from education, healthcare, to social innovation. CHS researcher, Oleksandra Khalaim has developed drama-based tools focused on teaching about sustainability which you can find in the handbook Sustainability Teaching for Impact: How to Inspire and Engage Students Using Drama. These tools can be used not only in higher education but in other spheres of learning too. Each provided text provides a comprehensive tutorial on how to use the specific tool.
Role play: A serious game to navigate global wicked problems
Aleksandra Halaim
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003496359-12
This text represents an educational approach for the board game Keep Cool, which simulates international climate negotiations and helps students engage with the complexity of climate change as a wicked problem. Through role play, players represent different global regions and make strategic decisions balancing economic growth, climate protection, and lobbying interests. The game develops key sustainability competencies such as systems thinking, adaptability, political agency, and anticipatory skills.
Forum play: Working with climate anxiety
Aleksandra Halaim and Anna Lehtonen
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003496359-19
This text represents a guidance text for a drama-based educational workshop designed to help participants engage with and reflect on climate anxiety through forum play. This method emphasizes emotional expression, critical thinking, and collaborative problem-solving, aiming to foster sustainability competencies. This emotion-filled learning format is unique for its ability to integrate personal experiences with theoretical understanding, compared to traditional, lecture-based learning.
Download a PDF with the two chapters here pdf, 282 kB..
Find the whole guidebook here: Wall, T., Österlind, E., & Hallgren, E. (Eds.). (2025). Sustainability Teaching for Impact: How to Inspire and Engage Students Using Drama (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003496359
More tools for incorporating serious gaming are coming soon.