Designing Educational Board Games of Global Anthropogenic Issues Through Interdisciplinary Collaboration

To contribute to the mitigation of global anthropogenic crises, engineering education needs to provide holistic views of these crises through collaborating with experts in various fields. This study designed three educational board games representing common structures among global anthropogenic issues and investigated their effects on the lessons learned by university students. Experts in Energy System Engineering, Virology, Philosophy of Education, Design Science, Agricultural Economics, and Law participated in this study. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th authors of this study designed games named ‘Parasite Wars’, ‘The Dialogue with Future’, and ‘The House”. The concept of games, such as themes, roles and purposes of players, and lessons expected to be imparted to participants, largely differed among the games; each designer represented the same issues from very different perspectives. The results of test sessions with 60 students suggest that participants learned lessons relevant to the messages that the designers conveyed. Further, discussions and reviews for designing board games are useful to understand the perspectives and approaches of experts in other fields and reflect on the roles of their own disciplines in terms of sustainability education. Such interdisciplinary collaboration enables the design of educational content that complements diverse perspectives on global anthropogenic issues and has the potential to help promote a holistic view of such complex issues.