Using a place-based catchment water game to teach concepts and skills for sustainable water management.

WATER management; SCIENCE education; SEVENTH grade (Education); CONCEPT learning; EDUCATORS

The purpose of science education involves communicating knowledge and developing skills, products, and processes. Recent debates emphasise the relationships between science, technology, society, the environment, and socioscientific inquiry. Science educators increasingly seek learning experiences where students collaborate on real-world problems, applying 21st-century skills. Gamebased learning offers one way to achieve this. This paper reports on a pilot study assessing game-based activities focused on sustainable water management in river catchments. It examined short-term changes in students' understanding of water management and collaboration skills. The research involved students from grades 7, 10, and university, along with their teachers. Findings from student and teacher surveys show that the game helps students learn concepts and skills for addressing sustainable water management and provides practice in systems thinking. Teachers noted the game promotes teamwork, negotiation, and reflection on choices, and while they suggested improvements (e.g., digitalisation), they were positive about future use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teaching Science: The Journal of the Australian Science Teachers Association is the property of Australian Science Teachers Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)