Gaming and Resilience: Teaching by Playing Together—Online Educational Competition at School during the Pandemic

Abstract

Educational and training initiatives for natural hazard reduction, climate change, and environmental sustainability are increasingly common. We describe educational games in which the protagonist, a fictional character girl, saves herself and others from natural disasters. This girl faces risk situations, from earthquake to flood to environmental challenges, and for each of these she is the protagonist of educational quizzes and of an escape room. These games were designed and played online during the COVID-19 pandemic, to introduce an engaging activity, reducing the difficulties of both students and teachers in distance learning. Simultaneous challenges between several classes were played during special scientific events, with a total of more than 8000 students flanked by about 500 teachers, always with very positive feedback. We pooled our knowledge to embrace innovation in gamification at school. Our games aim at increasing the response capacity of future more resilient citizens to protect themselves and others, adapting to natural risks, and to spread good practices in support of the civil protection. Each online race between classes from primary and middle school (ISCDE 2) is based on cooperative learning and followed by an important debriefing moment of reflective learning, guided by researchers to deeply analyze scientific topics.