HEART Force Drought Game
https://cires.colorado.edu/outreach/resources/game/heart-force-drought-game
https://cires.colorado.edu/outreach/resources/game/heart-force-drought-game
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
This activity takes one 60 minute class period
Learn more about Teaching Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness»
See how this Activity supports the Next Generation Science Standards»
Grade Level
Online Readiness
Topics
Climate Literacy
This Activity builds on the following concepts of Climate Literacy.
Click a topic below for supporting information, teaching ideas, and sample activities.
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Teaching Tips | Science | Pedagogy |
Technical Details
Teaching Tips
- This game is designed to be played in a classroom setting after completion of an introductory unit on drought.
- This game is played in teams of 4-8; larger teams are encouraged to enable robust discussion of multiple viewpoints.
- Once investments are made, the game progresses through a series of rounds in which a drought event occurs and worsens. As the drought progresses, the communities encounter negative impacts that test the investment choices that each group made.
- Play can end after any round, but it is recommended to leave time for a brief reflection and discussion session at the end.
About the Content
- This game is intended to explore the concept of extreme weather events and their effects on human communities.
- This game provides an activity for exploring how people can prepare for and mitigate the effects of drought on their community and the specific challenges that drought can have on rural areas.
- Game components such as pie charts encourage exploration of probabilities of different types of drought outcomes, and how those probabilities change as a drought event worsens.
- This game also requires measuring and removing water from a reservoir (a graduated cylinder) using a pipette.
- Resource developed in collaboration with expert scientists - no CLEAN expert science review was needed.
About the Pedagogy
- The activity is a game in which players take on roles of community members and make investments in different actions or structures that will help them be more resilient when drought occurs.
- This game helps students understand how community members can prepare for and contribute to long-term resilience.
- Students develop reasoning and negotiating skills as they advocate for the values of their assigned community member persona.
- This game encourages cooperation and compromise between community members with differing viewpoints on how funds should be invested.
- This game is part of a larger curricula around drought and can be combined with case-study examples that prepare students to imagine what a drought in their community might look like, as well as providing activities to engage with drought data.
Technical Details/Ease of Use
- This game requires facilitation by the teacher to ensure that teams understand their roles and are able to compromise to make investments.
- The game facilitator is also responsible for maintaining progress of the game through rounds of play.
- Basic play structure is easy, and digital slides are available to walk the facilitator through the rounds.
