Playing the Climate Future: Evaluating Climate-Adaptation Games for Higher Education

Abstract

Climate change presents complex environmental challenges that require students to engage with systems thinking, uncertainty, and long-term decision-making. Instructors increasingly seek teaching approaches that allow students to explore these issues in interactive and applied ways. Game-based learning has emerged as one such approach within experiential and constructivist pedagogy. Climate-themed games can simulate environmental systems, governance processes, and collective decision-making, allowing students to experiment with adaptation strategies and policy trade-offs. Despite the growing number of climate games available, instructors have limited guidance on which games are practical and effective for use in university classrooms. This preliminary study introduces an evaluation of the classroom usability and educational potential of several climate-themed games across higher-education contexts through a comparative analysis of gameplay mechanics, classroom logistics, and relevance to university teaching and learning outcomes. The selection includes cooperative board games, narrative role-play scenarios, and global negotiation simulations. The analysis focuses on two aspects. The first aspect addresses practical classroom usability, including setup requirements, preparation time, player numbers, session length, cognitive complexity, and facilitation demands. These factors determine whether a game can realistically be implemented within typical class periods. The second aspect examines pedagogical framing, including how games potentially support systems thinking, climate literacy, adaptation and mitigation trade-offs, equity considerations, collaborative decision-making, and post-game reflection. The evaluation combines interdisciplinary faculty review, pilot play sessions with faculty, and a literature review of scholarship on game-based learning in higher education, with the emphasis on climate-themed games. Results identify which games are most suitable for short class sessions, which require extended play, and which most effectively support student understanding of climate systems, governance challenges, and long-term adaptation. The study provides a practical guide for instructors interested in integrating climate games into university courses and proposes a comparative framework for evaluating climate game pedagogy across disciplines and multiple game modalities that can inform course design, activity selection, and classroom facilitation.