"Your move" - ​​The gamification of the sustainable development goals

Description

Institution

Organizations/areas of the university involved

Business School – within an Enterprise module (n=460 students)

Country
Ireland

In an effort to consider entrepreneurship and innovation in the future for undergraduate business and finance students, future trends are often embedded into the 1st year yearlong enterprise module (over 450 students annually). Due to an increased need and responsibility to inform students about sustainability in both business and the community, it was decided to consider the sustainable development goals to be an embedded part of the course.

From the 17 goals, a list of over 100 sub-topics were devised with examples such as ‘waste and the sea’, ‘what is income inequality’ and ‘STEM and the female student’. Teams selected their preferred topic and were asked to conceptualize a gamified way of teaching this topic to a chosen target audience. Teams were trained in gamification, design and provided with relevant SDG knowledge to think up their game idea. They presented their game idea as an online pitch with detail on the target audience, look and feel of the game and some digital artefacts to show movement / gameplay. In the second semester, teams were asked to attain some basic market research about their game and present the entire project as a research poster at a SDG public poster showcase (100 posters). They presented these posters at a large showcase event, where posters were judged by academic and industry staff.

VIDEO:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11GzlWlozweJHxbcSqnQHyVNC5-DlIM8t/view?usp=sharing

Results and impact measured or expected

This exercise allowed teams to explore the SDG’s in a novel way and consider a way to ‘teach’ this knowledge, thereby becoming knowledgeable in turn. The poster showcase allowed the student team ideas and interest in the SDG community to become public, thus helping to inform many more students and staff.

At present, over 100 online game pitches have been submitted and student teams are currently working on their poster assignments (showcase April 16th). During the showcase, posters will be graded by 12 academic staff as one panel, and 12 industry experts who will come from business and the NGO community. It is hoped that we will secure funding to sponsor one of the game ideas toward development into a tangible concept.
Some examples:
https://barbarazimmermann2.wixsite.com/epicenter
https://fakenewsdice.wixsite.com/mysite
https://alexanderfrentz2.wixsite.com/kangoo
https://beeawaregame2018.wordpress.com/

Connection with the SDG framework

The venture is very aligned with all SDGs and relates to number 17 in that it is focused on attempting to bring together the student, staff and external community together to learn and interact with the goals and think of them as they relate to different audiences or target groups.

Barriers and follow up

The venture is very aligned with all SDGs. The activity relates to number 17 specifically as it is focused on trying to bring together the student, staff and external community together to learn and interact with the goals. This pedagogical activity was a useful way of allowing students to develop their digital skills, communication skills and also consider how sustainability topics can be applied to the fields of business, innovation and learning.

Updated June 2020 by Roisin Lyons