Abstract:

According to the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, an action programme for people, the planet and prosperity has been defined through the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which take into account the three dimensions: economic, social, and environmental. The expected aim is to end poverty, fight against inequality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build peaceful societies that respect human rights.

Among these goals, one most relevant is sustainable natural resource management aiming to build more sustainable cities and communities, activate responsible production and consumption, and act on climate change.

Therefore, sustainable resource management is a relevant issue to preserve our environment and the quality of life for future generations by requiring a balance among social, economic, and environmental factors to benefit everyone.

To help achieve this objective, we need to raise awareness among the public and teach students the importance of being responsible for the environment.
In this framework, the NATURE project, co-funded by European Commission under the Erasmus Plus programme, intends to develop an experiential learning intervention for building the capacity of higher education students to adopt responsible behaviour on natural resources management and to design solutions for environmental sustainability in everyday and professional activities.

This aim is reached by developing an active, game-based learning methodology for environmental education focused on exploration, collaboration, and experimentation in a serious game setting designed during the project activities.

In addition, it provides educator support content in the form of learning activities, videos, and a reference guide that can facilitate the integration of project outcomes into teaching practices.

In this context, the paper intends to provide an overview of the NATURE project, including the teaching methodology adopted and the serious game environment built for developing higher education students' natural resources management skills.

Keywords:

Serious Game, Environment, Natural Resources Managements, Game based learning.