Students as Game-changers: reimagining sustainable futures by hacking iconic games

Flora Roberts, Stefan Werning & Larike Bronkhorst

The climate crisis affects young people the most, making many students anxious about their futures. The USO project, "Crisis to Resilience: Student Empowerment in the Climate Emergency and Beyond," helps students cope with climate anxiety by creating empowering learning spaces. These spaces empower students and teachers to collectively re-imagine and re-create sustainable futures, by experiencing what they can do, 

In this workshop, participants can explore one of three learning spaces: the ecocritical modification of popular games to rethink prominent (environmental) narratives. To develop agency, and build resilience, developing agency is critical to imagine sustainable futures. Instead of doing this as an abstract thought experiment, our approach involves modifying (‘hacking’) popular commercial game franchises that are personally meaningful to students.

The workshop offers hands-on experience with creative practices that can be used in teaching. No gaming experience is needed.

Biography

Flora, Stefan and Larike collaborate in the USO project, "Crisis to Resilience: Student Empowerment in the Climate Crisis and Beyond." The project is based on the idea that university teaching should not only educate students about global issues, but also help them take action towards creating better futures.

Flora Roberts is an environmental historian with a research focus on Soviet Central Asia, wherein she explores the history of the ‘battle against nature', cotton and the industrialisation of agriculture, and water infrastructure (like dams and canals). At UU she is the coordinator of the minors Environmental Humanities and America and Russia: Empires of the Global North, a core member of the Network for the Environmental Humanities, and leads the Biophilia (Re-create) package within the USO project Crisis to Resilience. 

Stefan Werning is an Associate Professor for Digital Media and Game Studies at Utrecht University, where he co-coordinates the focus area Game Research and organizes the annual summer school Multidisciplinary Game Research. He founded and leads the Utrecht Game Lab.

Larike Bronkhorst is associate professor at the department of Education and coordinator of the two-year research master Educational Sciences: Learning in Interaction. Her research focuses on learning across different contexts, with particular interest in what young people learn in and through (climate) activism and how we can create more space for activism in education.