Abstract:

A training course on workplace safety requires ensuring active and engaged participation, ultimately enabling workers to acquire important information on their own safety and that of colleagues in the workplace. Whenever regulatory frameworks on workplace safety training are lacking, vehiculating information in alternative ways may be stimulating for the participants, e.g., in the form of a board game. Among existing commercial board games, some have been designed to test and boost knowledge on e.g., geography, entertainment, history, art and literature, science and nature, sports and leisure, with players moving along a board and gaining virtual mentions or graduation degrees on the different categories. The adoption of multiple choice tests is common, and competitors are commonly requested to prove their skills on different topics. In the framework of an ongoing Horizon Europe project targeting the dissemination and adoption of simplified cultivation methods (InCiTis-Food, with grant agreement nr 101083790), a board game was drafted for holding a safety training in Nigeria during a workshop involving managers and trainers from 8 Living Labs located in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Gabon, as well as university students of degree courses in agriculture and aquaculture. The board game – named SafeLab Challenge - was based on 6 categories that targeted safety practices, namely “General safety information”, “Good practices”, “Chemical risk”, “Food safety”, “Outdoor activity” and “Hand and power tool”. For each category, 25 questions were prepared. Participants were grouped into competing teams, and the board was colocated at the centre of the room, while participants would be standing around and in turn rolled their dice and – depending on the spot where their token landed - they would have to respond a multiple choice questions of a specific category among the 6 listed above. Participants actively engaged to the game, being competitive and rejoicing at each correct answer. After every answer, an explanation was elaborated jointly with the group of trainees, in order to better fix the concept. The game had also the role to reinforce the relationships inside the group, beyond cultural differences, as also evidenced through a survey addressing participant satisfaction and acquired knowledge.

Keywords:

Learning by Playing, Extension, Boardgame, Safety, Training.