by

Nieske Vergunst

Experiences and results from the game premiere at Betweter Festival

Since my previous research update in August, a lot has happened. I spent much of September ironing out the last kinks in the Sea level game 2080, including the impact questionnaire, for its premiere at Betweter Festival. To give you some interesting insights into the practice of public engagement: the final preparations involved a surprising amount of arts and crafts and (climate conscious) shopping. For example, after buying the complete stock of sea animal washi tape stickers at Hema (7 rolls!), I spent a whole evening watching tv while cutting all of these sticker rolls into more easily manageable pieces.

The workhorse, packed and ready to go.

Showtime

And then, on Friday 29 September, it was showtime. I managed to transport two laptops, two bags of supplies and two quite large playing boards on my bike (yes, that’s how Dutch I am) to TivoliVredenburg. After setting up and crew dinner, the doors opened at 18.30. My fantastic crew of five volunteers – Aike Vonk, Franka Jesse, Tim Hermans, Caroline van Calcar en Tim van den Akker – guided visitors through the game all evening, until the very end of the festival, after midnight. Because the game is playable by 2 to 10 people at a time, we were able to keep playing game after game all night, during both busy and quieter times.

It was very rewarding to spend all evening observing the participants and hearing their experiences and thoughts about the game. And, to be perfectly honest, it was also quite exhausting, and it took me a minute to recover afterwards.

But one thing that helped me back up on my feet was a new colleague joining our research group on the Monday after the festival. Welcome Tugce Varol! Tugce got off to a super fast start, and in the coming months we’ll be working closely together on the impact analysis for my project. She will also join me in co-writing these research updates. So from now on, we will be writing to you in first person plural.

The first results

We are all eagerly awaiting the moment of truth – was it a success? While we cannot provide a concrete response just yet, we have some preliminary findings shedding light on the impact of our sea level rise game. The evaluation of our public engagement activity is a vital part of the overall process. It provides us with critical insights into whether we successfully reached our target population and achieved our public engagement goals. In this context, IMPACTLAB offers the key information and tools needed to help you plan and assess the impact of your public engagement activities.

Returning to the impact of the sea level game, we received a total of 106 responses. While this may appear as a great success in terms of outreach, only 21 of these respondents fell within the target age group of 16 to 25. Furthermore, although we aimed at  engaging individuals with both high and low science capital, we ended up reaching an audience with mostly high science capital.

At our busiest moments, we played the game with 10 people at a time.

Remember that the primary objectives of the game were twofold:

1. To assess whether, after playing the sea level game, participants felt that their actions influence sea level rise, and
2. To determine whether, after playing the sea level game, participants felt that sea level rise affects or will affect their life.

Given the relatively small sample size, it would be premature to draw concrete conclusions about the impact of the sea level rise game. However, from the first results, it does seem like the game had a somewhat positive impact on the audience’s perception regarding the influence of their actions on sea level rise and the relevance of the sea level rise in their lives.

Also, based on anecdotal evidence from observing and speaking to some of the players, they seemed highly engaged with the game and the topic. Some of the dilemmas seemed more difficult than others, judging by the amount of frowns and curses throughout the course of the game. And interestingly, a large majority of players ended up choosing the more climate-conscious option in most of the dilemmas. We do expect visitors of Betweter Festival to be relatively climate-conscious people, so we’re very curious to see how other groups of people will respond to the game and the dilemmas.

Looking for more players

Measuring impact is an ongoing process, and our first activity has helped us gather input on what we need to improve and set new goals for our future public engagement activities. Our goals for the future are as follows:

1. Expanding the reach of the sea level game to a wider audience aged 16-25.
2. Reaching out to an audience with low science capital to better understand the impact of our game.
3. Analyzing the data and sharing the findings with the public to raise awareness of sea level rise.

So, to expand the data, we are still looking for additional opportunities to play the game with people aged 16-25, preferably in or around Utrecht. Do you have any ideas or contacts? Let us know in the comments or send an e-mail to Nieske, N.L.Vergunst@uu.nl.

Header photo by Tessa de Geus