The University Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy has started a new Center for Leadership Simulation and Gaming in an effort to allow students to better test the real world impact of policy decisions.
The Center’s mission is to create a set of serious simulation games which will focus on Batten curriculum issues and enhance learning for undergraduate and Master of Public Policy students, said Gerard Learmonth, the center’s director.
Learmonth, who is the architect of the existing U.Va. Bay Game simulation, said the Center’s simulations will include issues related to the environment, education, security, development and health care, and will be very different from traditional video games.
“By serious we mean round-based games, which contrasts to what young people are into [which are] considered continuous action games on Xbox’s and PlayStation’s,” Learmonth said.
The Bay Game, a simulation based on data taken from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed area in 2009, is indicative of what future games will look like, allowing students to take on the roles of various societal stakeholders and to make decisions affecting aspects of the watershed such as its health and economy.
Students play multiple rounds of the game they can begin to see the domino impact their decisions have made, as well as the relationships that action in certain domains have on others.
One of the simulations already used by the Batten school, it is an opportunity for students to better understand systems thinking and systems reasoning, said University environmental science Prof. Dave Smith.
“The Bay Game was created to assist in the understanding of complex systems where unforeseen or unintended consequences may occur,” he said.
The first version of the Bay Game was completed in four months, and has since been updated.
U.Va. Bay Game II, with updated data from the Chesapeake Bay area, will be released soon.
The Bay Game has also been employed by businesses such as General Electric, IBM, Goldman Sachs and John Deere, and government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency as well as in schools around the globe.
The simulation has been successful as both a collaborative tool and a way to push beyond traditional teaching methods, University Architecture Prof. William Sherman said.
“The use of a simulation like the Bay Game engages the students in a way that a conventional lecture can’t,” Sherman said. “It is terrific to see them work together to understand the impact of their choices.”
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