Abstract:

Communication on sustainability involves important challenges in the current society, regardless of the audience background and awareness on this issue. It is a complex topic where different approaches collide and the interaction amongst economic, technical, environmental or social dimensions should be taken into account when a comprehensive analysis of the topic is wanted to be addressed.

This phenomenon also has effect when addressing these topics in higher education, especially in Master degrees where students come from different educational backgrounds. Additionally, the topic is usually focused from one specific field of expertise, running the risk of loosing the global view of the problem and the interrelations between different dimensions.

Hence, simulations models are proposed as a tool to enable people to understand better this topic making easier to become aware of those interconnections and the effect of global strategies by analysing the results of different scenarios proposed. Thus, teaching activities connecting simulations and game a base-learning strategy become an effective way to deal with this topic also in higher education. In this regard, Global Sustainability Crossroads (GSC) is a participatory simulation game in the context of energy and sustainability education, based on a global state-of-the-art energy–economy–environment model, which creates virtual scenarios where the participants propose climate mitigation strategies and shows the social, economic, and environmental consequences of decisions.

This work assesses the implementation of GSC as a part of an international master course, integrating it into the academic program to complement the theoretical sessions on sustainability and climate change. It was implemented with three main objectives:
(1) to provide a comprehensive perspective of sustainability and climate change to an audience with a technical background (mainly urban planning, engineering, architecture…);
(2) to open the possibility to explore some specific topics based on the research interests of the participants without omitting the rest of dimensions; and
(3) to promote the discussion on sustainability- and climate change related topics amongst participants with different technical and cultural backgrounds identifying strategies and actions informed by science and research data.

This teaching activity has been implemented during the last three years in a course of the Master “Smart Cities and Communities”, an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree focused on energy efficiency, smart grids, sustainable mobility and energy and urban planning. In it, students from all over the world take part, most of them with a background on studies on architecture, urban planning or the different fields of engineering.

The effects of this implementation is assessed considering the survey results from all the participants in three academic years, involving students from 17 countries from Europe, Africa, Asia and America. The experience demonstrates the pedagogical potential of the model: it boosts discussions informed by science on multidisciplinary issues such as the role of technology and biophysical constraints, or the relationship between economic growth and sustainability, as well as showing that it can be an effective communication tool that promote the engagement on this issue and the ability of analysing research data and academic publications on the different fields related to this topic.

Keywords:

Global Sustainability Crossroads, Gamification, Simulation game, Sustainability, Higher education.