Hazard Planning Games Co-Designed with Youth using Player Motivation: A Longitudinal Pilot in Westport, WA

Abstract

This thesis serves as a longitudinal pilot for using observation of player motivations among community youth co-designing a localized coastal hazard planning game in Westport, WA. The benefits of this may include better youth engagement with lessons on local natural hazard risk reduction, deeper reflection on potential solutions, more positive associations with an inherently somber subject matter, and a stronger sense of personal connection with efforts to increase the adaptive capacity of their community. The project’s design focused on drawing directly from local coastal hazard data, while also prioritizing the identification and satisfaction of participants’ measurable gameplay motivations to enhance engagement-based learning and participation of youth in building adaptive capacity.It follows years of substantial NSF-funded research done by the Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub to assist coastal cities across the Cascadia region to “increase coastal community adaptive capacity, through community engagement and co-production” (Cascadia CoPes Hub). An NSF Large-Scale CoPe: The Cascadia Coastlines and People Hazards Research Hub grant (Award Abstract #2103713) supported the work of this thesis. Though the sample of participants was too small to gather any solid conclusions from the data, engagement with this approach to game-based learning was observed to be enhanced noticeably compared to earlier game-based research in Westport. This may be attributable to player motivations, which remained fairly consistent over six months, as well as the substantial increase in the participants’ sense of ownership over the learning experience.