TaSungonMo’naGameSummary

TaSungonMo’naGameSummary

Ancestral wisdom tied together through storytelling, rooted in common values, and shared across generations is critical to CHamoru identities in the Mariana Islands. However, these identities are threatened by the rise of fossil fuel emissions, climate change, and land occupation issues from the Marianas’ geopolitical circumstances. Public education in the Marianas—not unlike the U.S. — currently lacks a concrete curriculum about climate change and climate action. Implementing indigenous, place-based K12 climate education centered around land and food sovereignty has the potential to empower youth towards community resilience. Much of the current dialogue we see surrounding climate action is heavily catered toward the individual. Based on our conversations with The One Canoe Project, climate action requires collaboration. The One Canoe Project “aims to teach the root causes of the climate crisis and encourage young students to use ancestral wisdom to keep humanity moving forward. ” In doing so, Pacific wisdom and values of collaboration, stewardship, generosity, and gratitude serve as teaching tools in and of themselves. Games are a powerful medium to inspire engagement, critical thinking, and community-building. As shown in the Appendix, scenario role-play games combine several types of learning – including cognitive domains that focus on decision-making, social domains that encourage team problem-solving, and affective domains that teach preparation while offering surrogate experiential learning via simulations. Our game seeks to incorporate these elements by combining education with empowerment. The result isTaSungonMo’na:1 NavigatingChange –a collaborative game, set in the near-future, to help high school students and other young people in the Mariana Islands navigate the climate-related issues facing their communities together. By asking players to share stories and respond to culturally-specific cards, the game challenges students to think critically and collaboratively about community-centered actions to take against climate change, while centering CHamoru culture, histories, and communities. With the help of our collaborators (including Moñeka, Franceska, Justin, and many others), we have designed and printed a prototype for physical play. The prototype includes a game board, player profiles, and several play materials (including cards, dice, and a timer) – as well as game instructions and an educator guide. We have shared additional materials online (such as our spreadsheet of card prompts and educational links) to allow teachers and partners to tailor this work to their needs. The game takes about 40 minutes to play (for a high school classroom), and is designed for 36 players (based on the number of people in a typical canoe). The rest of this report details our process from research to design, including weekly workshops and multiple play-tests to inform our final product.

1 CHamoru for “forging ahead. ”