[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

How can we learn to take risks, deal with ambiguity, and respond with agility to a volatile world? Interestingly, people have been practicing these skills for a couple generations now, and doing it for fun. Through Role Playing Games like Dungeons and Dragons, we find all these elements packaged into a deeply social experience based in a fantasy world. Using the same motivations and interactions, we have taken this concept and moved it from the world of Fantasy into that of Science Fiction. In this session we will share how we designed and implemented three role playing games with a focus on sustainability. Each of these games were scaled to become an experience shared by the entire Green School Middle School. In each case, students not only got real practice in the core skills, but had so much fun doing it that they could not stop thinking about it.

In Utopia/Dystopia, students imagine living in a near future where humans can only viably live in Archologies run by AI, and must learn how to subvert the system. In Marsbound, students become the first colonists on Mars, and have to balance a fine line of managing collective resources and innovating for a better future. The New States of Atlantis puts students in the land developer's seat, where they make decisions that impact their island and deal with cataclysm.

The session is designed for educators interested in creating scenarios that evoke authentic feelings we face in a VUCA world. It will share the development journey of these games, and how this type of role play builds memorable experiences for all ages. As each of the games we created are open source, all materials are openly available. After this session, bold educators and administrators will feel empowered to employ such an experience in their class or school.