Presented by Anders Nordby and Håvard Vibeto

1. The Best School Day Ever !Teaching Sustainability and System Thinking by Pervasive Game playing.Anders Nordby, Kristine Øygardslia, Ulrik Sverdrup, Harald Sverdrup Presented by Anders Nordby and Håvard Vibeto

2. Whatwewanted to do • In a 2nd year game technology class on System Thinking we wanted the students to create a Pervasive Educational Game to teach Sustainability and Systems Thinking to elementary school children • Then we wanted them to playtest it on 5th and 7th-graders on a local elementary school • What we wanted to study the children’s • Motivation • Learning outcomes • Other skills, such as creative problem solving • Ability to understand systems thinking

3. Pervasive Games? • Games that blend reality and games, often cross-mediated • Including (but not limited to):* - Alternate Reality Games - Urban Adventure Games - Treasure hunts - Street Smart Sports Why So Serious? (AlternateReality Game) 10 million people, 75 countries MysteryonFith Avenue (Treasure Hunt) PacManhattan (Street Smart Sports)

4. The Pervasive Game • The story starts with a video showing the storyline; a refugee fleeing from his country because of war and lack of food cased by climate change • The goal was to find out what happened to the environment in his country, and how the pollution and climate change could be prevented • Throughout the game there are clues and actors leading the players in the right directions

5. The pervasive game CLD’s • The CLD shows how the mini-games are integrated with each other and the pervasive game. • For example the Worm game has to be played and won to have food resources for the island game, and the refugee game has to be resolved to have workforce for the fabric and the power plants, also in the Island game. • The Treasure in the Pervasive game has to be found to be able to buy things in the Island game. The CLD also shows how the pollution, war and food/resources are the reason for the refugee escape.

6. The Soil Ecology game

7. The Resource Game

8. The Refugee game

9. Actors and clues • Conversations and riddles from different actors (students) gave the children information about sustainability related subjects including: • a King Earth Worm talking about soil ecology and pollution, • a Gardener talking about forests and ecological diversity, • a locksmith talking about recycling, • a merchant talking about trade. • Passwords and clueswherehidden in objects in prepared locations or onthe web

10. Playing the Game • 07:30 - 08:30: Prepare location • 08:30 - 11:00: Playing game • 11:00 - 12:00: Break • 12:00 - 13:00: Diary • - 13:00 - 14:00: Systems Thinking session • The 16 children were divided into two groups of 8. • Both teams got one backpack, containing: • A walkie-talkie, • A treasure map, • A notebook • Passwords and some clues • We assigned one student to each group to help them, but they were exhausted in 30 minutes • The children basically solved the game alone in 2+ hours....

11. The Diary • After the pupils had finished the game, they were given a workbook, made like the diary of the refugee from the introduction video. • This repeated the main points that the pupils should learn while playing the game. • It also contained several questions that could be used to assess the learning outcome.

12. The System Thinking Session • This worked very well, and the children understood the enforcing and balancing factors better than many adults do. • Some of the students felt that this was the best part of the whole day. • The school day concluded with a systems thinking session. • Here, the children discussed what they had learned throughout the day, and tried to see how different variables would affect each other (example): • pollution leading to climate change, • leading to drought, • leading to people having to flee their country.

13. Some observations Motivation Learning • The game gave students who usually do not like school a chance to shine! • The combination of pervasive games, systems thinking and digital games seemed to be more fitted for children today than traditional learning methods. • Although many of the children already knew a lot of the content we tried to teach them, the game provided a way for them to tie everything together, and understand how everything was connected. • The children really enjoyed playing the game, and expressed that they wanted more schooldays like this. • Some of the children who normally didn't enjoy school very much, especially enjoyed this game since it was closer to their preferred way of learning. • After playing the game, some of the children borrowed books from the school library to learn more about sustainable living. Creativity • "Hacking" onto the other team's walkie-talkies • Speaking in German to hide information from the other team • Solving a quest by making the actors talk to another through the walkie-talkies to trade goods • Especially the 5th graders showed amazing organizational skills

14. The Teacher Education After this project the teacher education adopted the strategy and we now teach a 2 courses in Games, Animations and Learning (15+15 ECTS). In these courses we let the teachers create Pervasive Games including digital games in simple Gamer Engines like Kodu, GamestarMeachanicsetc… Examples: Keiser Resir - Alternative Reality Game. That each the children about recycling of waste Operation Overload - Treasure hunt. Two classes 1000 km apart collaborate. The mystery of Agatha Hanssen - Urban Adventure Game in Namsos during the Second World War

15. Questions?