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Board games in education

Fishbanks

Fishbanks is a simulation game developed by Dennis Meadows (co-author to “Limits to Growth”) and provides a demonstration of the concept of the tragedy of the commons. In the game, participants play in groups taking on the role of fishing companies. The objective of the game is for teams to maximise the growth of their respective company value by managing their fleet of fishing boats and their relationship with the other teams in a strategic manner. The task demands decision making with limited access to information, management of a renewable resource in a complex system, and interplay with other stakeholders including competition, negotiation and cooperation. In connection with the game session, there is a comprehensive debriefing where the students’ own experiences during the session are discussed. There is also an individual homework assignment connected to the Fishbanks seminar.

Fishbanks Game board with a coastal area and boat-shaped game pieces, a paper with a role description
Fishbanks

Dilemma

Dilemma is a quiz-like board game for 3-5 players developed by Jon-Erik Dahlin. The game is a fun way to learn about sustainable development. It also encourages participants to reflect, to debate and to think critically about sustainability dilemmas, which often have both moral and ethical dimensions. The game includes knowledge questions and dilemmas.

The knowledge questions are written on cards together with clues, and they offer a learning activity in themselves as well as a knowledge check-up before the written test. There is one deck with ‘easy questions’ and one with ‘difficult questions’.

The dilemma challenges are also written on cards, together with two opposing viewpoints for each dilemma. Players should put forward arguments for one of those viewpoints (and they may very well have to argue for a viewpoint which they do not actually agree with!), and another player should put forward arguments for the opposing viewpoint. There are three decks of dilemma-cards: (1) on sustainable development as a concept, and various perspectives on sustainability; (2) on various sustainability challenges and opposing views on how to deal with those; (3) on the relationship between sustainable development and technology/engineering. It is possible to play the Dilemma game with the same student group at up to three separate occasions, where a new deck with dilemma cards is chosen each time.

Dilemma was developed to be used in classroom exercises or seminars, as a fun and interactive learning method for students. It is also a great tool for teachers, who can use the ‘dilemmas’ found in the box as a starting point for discussions, assignments or case studies. In the introduction course module, the game is used in association with debriefings, assignments, and using the beneficial effects of repetivity:

Dilemma Game board with blueprint and gear patterns, game pieces and two types of playing cards: "step by step" and "dilemma".
Dilemma

Debriefings, Assignments and Repetitivity

  • Debriefings: rather than playing the game with students as an isolated event, it is extremely powerful to end each game session with a well prepared debriefing. At least 45 minutes should be set aside for the debriefing. It is valuable for the students’ learning to discuss for example (i) their experiences during discussions, (ii) how game session discussions may be similar in some senses and different in others to the public media debate, (iii) bring up a few of the dilemmas encountered during the game session and discuss those in the class with teacher moderation.
  • Assignments: during a Dilemma game session students have the chance to formulate discussion arguments themselves. During debriefing some discussion points may be brought up for a more thorough debate with teacher moderation. As a third tier, it is powerful to give students a group assignment, to choose one of the dilemmas encountered during the game session – to study the particular subject further and to formulate more well though trough arguments that they hand in as a written assignment task.
  • Repetitivity: the board game Dilemma is designed to be played repetitively by the same student group up to three times. There are three decks of Dilemma cards and a new theme of dilemmas is used each time. 

Contact

For more information about the Dilemma game, and for discussions on how to use it in your own teaching, contact Jon-Erik Dahlin (jonerikd@kth.se) .