AppendixBFullEducatorGuide&Curriculum

AppendixBFullEducatorGuide&Curriculum

TASUNGONMO’NA Navigating Change EDUCATORGUIDE

Welcome! Ta Sungon Mo’na (meaning “forging ahead”) is 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.

With game elements designed around four traditional values (uno hit, collaboration, stewardship, and generosity), students role play as one of six characters, each an integral community stakeholder for climate justice, while working as a team against the clock.

Through sharing stories and responding 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.

LearningObjectives

After playing this game, students will be able to: 1. Apply lessons from real-world experiences and historical events in response to simulated climate disaster events, 2. Name actions against climate change based on Indigenous values, understandings, and approaches, 3. Reflect on shared experiences with other players through storytelling, 4. Empathize with different community stakeholders through role-playing, 5. Synthesize information under pressure (time) and collaboratively make decisions.

HowdoIplaythegame?

Please refer to the TaSungonMo’nagame rules for instructions on how to play.

HowcanIfitTaSungonMo’naintomyclassroom? These are suggested practices for incorporating this game: 1. Use TaSungonMo’naas a stand-alone way to introduce/reinforce concepts of climate education to students 2. For a blended learning approach, begin and end the game with suggested teacher-facilitated classroom discussion questions stated below.

See our References for an overview of the research behind the design of TaSungonMo’na. We also provide an informational link with each player card prompt to promote learning from real efforts to build sustainability.

Table1TheGamePlayExperience Narrative

A maximum of 60 minutes combined

The stories, questions, and narratives present in our game all align with the Guåhan high school social studies and science curricular topics. Among other things, the game has ● 1 interactive map ● 6 example player roles ● 40 player cards ● 15 event cards ● 3 climate hazards, defined by dice roll chances and a table of severity These positive and not-so-positive twists and turns emphasize the wide range of potential island happenings.

Game

After the dice are rolled, students answer card prompts that reflect the key values of collaboration, stewardship, generosity, and gratitude. Player actions are determined based on their responses to the cards, which then affect their ability to build resilience and travel between islands. The overall goal of the game is to keep island health as high as possible while traveling to all of the Islands.

ExtensionActivities

Time will vary For a rich, cross-curricular approach, we suggest having your students begin and end the game with reflective exercises and group discussion questions. These activities allow for the game to be a part of a larger classroom discussion.

Pre-GameDiscussionQuestions&Topics

● What comes to mind when you think of sustainability? ● What does a strong community look like to you? ● Where do you see extractive colonial systems present in your everyday life? ● How can storytelling be used as a vehicle for sparking conversation and taking action? ● What is the difference, for you, between centering a story on culture and values versus disaster? How does this change how people act and react to the story, if at all?

Post-GameDiscussionQuestions&Topics

● How do you understand your individual and collective actions to be interconnected to Indigenous food, transportation, social, and natural systems? ● What context/information would have been helpful in playing the game? Why? ● Think back upon your collective decisions. Which choice did you make as a group that benefited your group the most? Why? ● Which character in the game do you relate the most to? Why? ● How might your experience engaging with negative outcomes in the game help you apply new thinking to your everyday life? ● What are some personal connections you can make to the game and the stories it told or themes/values it represented?

Table2ConnectionsBetweenGameandCurriculum

Generalbackgroundoncurriculum WhereTaSungonMo’nafitsin

BL.2.30 Recognize and describe how human beings are part of Earth’s ecosystems and that human activities can, deliberately or inadvertently, alter the equilibrium in ecosystems.

AG1.1 Discuss specific cultural responses to persistent human needs & contemporary issues

GH2.4 Key Q What efforts have been made in order for the people of Guåhan to attain a greater measure of self-determination?

WH2.3 Cause Effect vs. Correlation & SAT 10 objective of relating cause & effect to historical events WH2.4 Long & short-term cause+effect relationships Our game highlights the increasing threat of climate and environmental issues due to human activities, as well as the actions people can take to build resilience or reduce their effects.

Players must address card prompts using various approaches (storytelling, resilience-based organizing, etc.). The card prompts foster culturally-responsive gameplay, place-based learning, and concrete responses to current issues.

Certain cards involve topics of food, land, and local sovereignty – as well as links to learn more about real-world efforts in this space.

Players can see the effect of their actions on the game, both in decisions on building resilience as well as improving island health and travel capacity.

WH3.1 Analyzing how physical/cultural landscapes of world influence interpretation on past

WH1.1 Demonstrate appreciation of cultural values

GH2.3 Ancient CHamoru Society Modern Guåhan

GH5.1 Explain how social change & economic factors have impacted the physical environment (including tourism industry, influx of immigrants, U.S. military build-up) The game is grounded in the geography and environmental attributes of the Mariana Islands.

Our game instructions highlight the values of collaboration, stewardship, generosity, and gratitude.

Card prompts based on elements of ancient society, and educational links (one per card) to local groups that are carrying forward these teachings

Our “chance cards” and player prompts involve elements of these topics (such as the military), as well as educational links to current happenings in this space.

ReferencesforResearch-basedDesign

Our game design and development process relied on the incredible wisdom and participation of our partners at The One Canoe Project. We assessed Guåhan-specific curriculum needs as well as culturally-responsive gameplay—gameplay that draws from and uplifts the cultures involved. Below are additional references on these topics.

Significance&ImplicationsofCulturally-ResponsiveGameplay

Like culturally-responsive teaching which seeks to “center classroom instruction in multi-ethnic cultural frames of reference” Gay, 2009, culturally-responsive gameplay showcases the power of games to function as tools for passing on cultural teachings and practices Lapensée, 2016.

TheRoleofGameplayinLearningEnvironments

Games can serve a dual purpose in the classroom, serving as both a fun, engaging exercise and also an activity that holds a variety of relevant lessons. Imaginative and role-playing games “particularly help learners develop skills and intuition because they invest in the decisions they make and persist to do better” Clark et al., 2014a as cited in Common Sense Media, 2015). According to research focused on the use of games in classrooms, interactive games (like Ta Sungon Mo’na) necessitate “higher-order cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal processes and skills” Clark et al., 2014.

TheImpactofFantasticalScenarios

An early study in 1983 found that “imagining oneself performing (or not performing) a certain behavior produces corresponding changes in intention towards that behavior” Anderson, 1983. Games employing role-play allow players to adopt identities other than their own, engaging in behaviors beyond what they might normally consider.

TaSungonMo’nais an interactive, collaborative way to give high school students the agency to explore issues of climate change including food and land sovereignty within the Mariana Islands. Through the common choose-your-own-adventure format, students play on one single team through the perspective of one of six main characters, each of whom plays an integral role in the community. The varied story paths and multiple decision points challenge students to think critically about issues directly facing their communities and work collaboratively to explore courses of action.

Table3SummaryofResilience-BasedLearningTheory

Table4SummaryofResilience-BasedLearningCaseStudy