Climate-Conscious NC: A Serious Game About Extreme Precipitation

Central North Carolina can expect to see more extreme precipitation events—acute heavy deluges of precipitation that quickly dump water onto the land, or sustained long-term precipitation events. Either of these have the potential to overwhelm and overburden stormwater systems and cause flooding, mudslides, power outages, and damage to infrastructure, property, and human health. City and town planners must prepare and adapt to protect communities inequitably at-risk.

Serious games are powerful learning tools that utilize intrinsically motivating gaming mechanics to build knowledge and emotional and intellectual connections to content. In this event, a team from the Libraries will play a virtual deliberative serious game considering the economic and societal implications of climate-exacerbated extreme precipitation events on a fictional city. Max Cawley will talk about serious games and facilitate the gameplay.

Max Cawley is an educator, researcher, evaluator, game designer, and science communicator with the Museum of Life & Science in Durham, NC. He works with researchers and scientists to develop and design games to communicate complex science—on topics ranging from arctic geopolitics to standing in lines. Max is interested in the learning that occurs through playing games and believes in their potential transformative power as a tool for deep engagement in complicated topics.

This event is part of the Global Change Games series.

This event will be streamed live from our Twitch page. Anyone can watch the livestream, and if you have a free Twitch account, you can send your questions and comments in the live chat. Recordings of past streams are available on our YouTube page after the event.