Planit-Education

The use of serious games (games based learning) in the classroom is gaining momentum.

The Need / Rationale

Education for sustainable development is gaining importance and has been included in recent curriculum developments that will feed through into classroom practice. The UK Government's Panel for Sustainable Development Education stated;

"Education for sustainable development enables people to develop the knowledge, values and skills to participate in decisions about the way we do things individually and collectively, both locally and globally, that will improve the quality of life now without damaging the planet for the future."

The Solution

A dynamic Learning simulation based on the successful Planit-nw platform that has been specifically tailored to the National Curriculum for Geography and General Studies. It can also be applied to the Citizenship issues in Key Stages 4 and 5.

The Aims of Planit-Education:

	•	To raise awareness of sustainable development
	•	To understand the impacts of local decision making
	•	To widen the overall knowledge of the community
	•	To improve group working
	•	To provide an engaging way of presenting a complex subject

3D Dynamic main menu

Planit-Education allows students to run a community. Their decisions on issues such as energy supply, housing and regeneration, health, education, waste, sport and transport determine how sustainable the community becomes.

The report screens show the state of the community at each stage of the game. These can be used as visual guides to issues that need attention.

Students prioritise and purchase projects for each building. The simulation then looks at how these would influence the overall sustainability of the community. It is played over 4 rounds, each representing a year in the community and at each update round, the impacts of the decisions made in previous rounds are shown dynamically.

“The up-to-date technology used in the game kept us all focused”

The annual performance report shows how students' decisions affect the social, economic, environmental aspects and use of resources in the area.

Students can look at case studies and other background information to give them a taste of what sort of issues the buildings would deal with in ‘real life’.

Benefits

	•	makes learning an engaging, enjoyable and memorable experience
	•	involves all participants in decision making
	•	immerses participants in the learning so they can see issues from different perspectives
	•	see immediately, impacts that decisions can have on other areas of a community
	•	encourages team working, discussion and collaboration

National Curriculum links with sustainable development

Subject	In the LearningSIMULATION
Geography	Managing cities Population dynamics Economic activity Population pressure and resource management Recreation and tourism Climate change
General Studies	Conservation of energy Industry and commerce Climate change Housing and transport Social justice
Citizenship	How the economy functions Business and enterprise Taking part Global issues, local action

“helped us understand the need to work together”

More Information

Planit-nw Microsite

Factsheet

Evaluation Report