CLEAN Teleconference Call June 10, 2014
![[reuse info]](/images/information_16.png)
World Climate: A Computer-Simulation-Based Role-Playing Exercise, a project of UMass Lowell and Climate Interactive
Abstract: Juliette will present World Climate, a simulation role-playing game in which participants get to take on the role of a delegate to the United Nations Conference of Parties in a facilitated role-playing game framed by state-of-the-art climate change science. During the webinar, she will give an intro to the game and the decision-support computer model, C-ROADS, that frames it. We'll then run a mini version of the game in which webinar participants can make their own decisions about climate policy for their negotiating bloc and use C-ROADS to find out what your global deal means for future generations. We'll discuss lessons learned, effective debrief and facilitation approaches, and instructional settings in which this tool can be used - from early high school to graduate school, to informal settings that have included university presidents, Nobel Prize-winning climate scientists, CEOs, policymakers, citizens, and students around the world.
World Climate's development and evaluation have been supported by grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation and external evaluation indicate that it is a powerful learning tool for delivering insights into the urgency, scale, and possibility of action for successfully mitigating climate change.
Bio: Juliette Rooney-Varga is Director of the UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative (CCI) and Associate Professor of Environmental Biology. Her microbial ecology research has spanned diverse topics related to carbon cycling, climate change, and energy; from feedback loops in microbial production of methane in the Arctic and the climate system, to harnessing electricity produced by anaerobic microorganisms in soil.
She is currently leading the NASA-funded CAM (Climate Education in an Age of Media) Project that puts the tools of media-making into the hands of students, in order to engage them with climate change science and empower them to add their own voices to the societal discourse about an issue that will impact younger generations significantly. She is also working closely with Climate Interactive, an organization that is at the forefront of creating decision-support simulations around climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy. With support from the National Science Foundation, Rooney-Varga's group and Climate Interactive are bringing decision-support simulations into immersive role-playing exercises that enable students, citizens, and decision-makers to come to their own insights, grounded in current scientific understanding, about the impacts of national and regional climate and energy choices and policies.
We will be using GoToMeeting for this teleconference call. Login information was sent on June 4 but will be included again with the usual announcement email.
Email list archive Join the CLEAN Network
Recent and upcoming CLEAN Network telecon topics and speakers »