Case Study 25: Board Games
building scientific literacy and heightening awareness of the value of collaborative
decision making
Summary Details
Author: Karen Miller [Adaptation Scotland], Alister Scott [Birmingham City University]
Humanitarian decision-making level: Community
Geographic region: UK
Relevance of approach across scientific disciplines: Board games are flexible and accessible tools for
improving preparedness, planning and resilience and can be used to enable improved communication of
complex science in a fun, multidisciplinary environment
Contact:
Karen Miller
Contact:
Alister Scott
Dialogue Process
Board games as a tool for dialogue enable those less familiar with a given scientific discipline to improve
both their awareness of that discipline as an enabler of humanitarian action, as well as the discipline’s
humanitarian implications. Games promote a learn-by-doing approach, giving context to theory and putting
theory into practice. Two examples are referenced in this case study:
Adaptation Scotland’s climate change adaptation board game is used as part of an ongoing dialogue and
wider capacity building process which intends to raise awareness of and generate further interest in climate
adaptation. It has ordinarily been used at Adaptation Scotland events as an ice-breaker to engage
audiences unfamiliar with climate impacts and adaptation. The game allows participants to explore the
challenges and opportunities that extreme weather and climate change may present, the hard decisions
that need to be made, how to deal with risk and uncertainty, and the financial implications of action and
inaction. Decision-making, creative thinking, teamwork, and communication skills are tested throughout
the game.
Watch a video:
Adaptation Scotland
Game in Action
The game was designed in partnership with Transport Scotland and was first played by 350 staff at
Transport Scotland’s annual staff conference. The game was also used at the first Climate Ready Clyde
workshop in 2011. Climate Ready Clyde provides a forum for public sector, private sector and community
facing organizations to identify and discuss the challenges that Glasgow and the Clyde Valley face as a result
of climate change.
RUFopoly is an interactive game that enables players to journey through the fictitious county of RUFshire,
which is under constant change from pressures for development and new opportunities generated by the
region’s growing population and changing environmental governance. The purpose of the game is for
players to answer questions relating to the themes of the Birmingham City University ‘Rural Economic Land
Use’ project (Values, Connections, and Long Termism), as randomly determined by the throw of a dice. This
journey of discovery enables players to experience the issues the research team faced in their work across
several rural urban fringes. Players are able to discuss and record their answers with a facilitator securing
individual written justifications. The audit trail of decisions is then used to allow each player to devise their
own vision thus understanding the impact of their previous decisions. RUFopoly was initially showcased at
the RELU conference - "Who Should Run the Countryside" in November 2011 and has subsequently been
used for the following purposes and events:
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
Swedish farmers and land managers in Malmo, Sweden.
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Adapted for an forthcoming (November 2013) rural futures conference in Nebraska, USA.

Featured at Living With Environmental Change ‘Journey to Adaptation’ conference, November
2012.

Demonstrated at the Welsh Assembly Government with plans for the game to be used as part of
the government’s ‘Natural Environment Framework’ exercise.

Demonstrated for members of Staffordshire County Council Cabinet and members of the Royal
Town Planning Institute, West Midlands.
Adapted for use in the spatial strategy process for the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local
Enterprise Partnership.
Showcased during Climate week as part of games to ‘save the planet’ at the Science Museum,
London, 2013
Watch a video:
RUFopoly in action
Read more:
RUFopoly in the
news
Read more:
Academic paper
featuring the use of
RUFopoly in the process
of re-connecting spatial
planning theory and
practice
MEthod
As a useful tool for the consolidation of scientific learning, board games are best played after the
presentation of given scientific information. Nevertheless, given their limited capacity to deliver technical
information, they may also be played as a useful introductory learning exercise in themselves.
The aim of Adaptation Scotland’s climate change adaptation game is to encourage debate and thinking
among players as to the nature and consequences of their decision-making behaviour, specifically with
regard to the unpredictable impacts of climate change. The game is usually played after the “introduction
to adaptation” presentation, materials for which are available from Adaptation Scotland. Each team is
required to make climate adaptation decisions as they respond to issues encountered while travelling
around the game board. These issues will lose, save or earn money depending on previous decisions or
chance. Once the game is complete, participants are encouraged to feedback their experience with regard
to the game objectives, for instance:




What did you learn about the consequences of climate change?
Contact Adaptation
Scotland for
presentation
materials
Adaptation Scotland
game instructions
and resources
Which investments paid off?
What challenges did you face in making investment decisions?
How do these experiences relate to the decisions you are required to make in your own work?
In RUFopoly, players move around a board using the dice to determine the question that is to be discussed.
This process is supported by a facilitator who enables discussion across a table of up to 6 players ideally.
After discussion each player then writes their own answer with a justification. The journey is made through
a fictitious rural urban fringe called RUFshire. In addition to provoking discussion throughout the game, the
role of the facilitator is to provide an end of game report which extracts the key themes, findings and
trends from the board game activity usually across several tables where a different game is played. These
are presented immediately to the group as a quick and dirty summary but with further discussion around
the barriers and opportunities that people encounter to realising their constructed visions. This then shapes
a written report, depending on the needs of the user. Crucial to the game’s success is the involvement of all
members of the research team in the development of questions drawing from their own research and
policy experiences.
IMPACT
RUFopoly
description and
instructions
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changing and
extending the
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Impact on vulnerability
Used in isolation, Adaptation Scotland’s game cannot provide suitably robust evidence on which to make
an adaptation decision. However, used in tandem with ongoing engagement with Adaptation Scotland it
has helped to inform some successful initiatives. For instance, the game was used in the first of three
Climate Ready Clyde workshops. The workshops, held in 2011/12, engaged representatives from over 40
different organizations and resulted in widespread buy-in to further work to scope options for developing a
regional adaptation strategy and action plan. Similarly, when used during Adaptation Scotland’s Climate
Change Risk Assessment training, the game helped stimulate ideas for further work among participants.
One local authority had the idea to form an adaptation support group which, now established, comprises
local authorities and public bodies from across Scotland. The group has met several times to learn from and
support each other in their climate adaptation work.
RUFopoly is currently being developed to help augment community resources for neighbourhood and local
plans. Interaction around a board proved a valuable learning experience for participants, with game
activities forcing players outside of their usual areas of focus. Significantly, Rufopoly also captures most of
the evidence from over-arching research and translates it into a fun-led activity that makes complex jargon
accessible and can provide useful intelligence for community planning purposes.The development of the
Rufopoly learning tool for a conference output exceeded all expectations and has led to major impacts in
national and local government, business, community group and professional institute contexts.
Informing specific humanitarian decision making process
The board games discussed here informed humanitarian decision-making in so far as they strengthened
basic understanding of a given scientific discipline; encouraged greater care over terminology; challenged
assumptions that both the users and providers of scientific information share common understandings of
common terminology and; enabled participants to share learning on effective tools for enhancing science‐
Read more:
Profile of RUFopoly
on Living with
Environmental
Change
humanitarian dialogue.
Informing the focus of current/proposed scientific research
Board games as a tool for dialogue provide limited opportunities to inform current and proposed scientific
research. Nevertheless, through opening new channels of communication between providers and users of a
given type of scientific information, they promote forms of scientific research more responsive to the needs
of those with humanitarian responsibilities.
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