Urban Sustainability

A Game-Based Approach

herausgegeben von: Jason Papathanasiou, Dr. Georgios Tsaples, Anastasia Blouchoutzi

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Springer Texts in Business and Economics

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This textbook provides an innovative pedagogy to students who will be the policy makers of tomorrow. It provides thoughts on sustainability and the complexity among its different dimensions. It guides students through experience, processes of complex decision making, and sharpen their clarity of thought, to enhance their communication abilities and help them develop critical thinking. It provides key competencies to address the complexities of sustainable development.
By combining game-based learning with an analytical style of education, supplemental materials are provided to make the definitions of various sustainability aspects more concrete and allows students to experiment in a consequence-free environment, with scenario examples. Board Game and a hypothetical management course, dealing with various topics like transportation sustainability, societal metabolism, etc. as well as with decision making under those contexts, will formalize the mathematics needed to make robust decisions.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Societal Metabolism: A Brief Introduction

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to help the reader understand the complexities of modern urban systems before diving deeper and exploring these concepts in more detail in the subsequent chapters. This chapter describes the main definitions of societal metabolism and briefly introduces some concepts. It also shows how the theoretical models of flows of energy and material can be translated to elements of everyday life. The reader will be introduced to elements of societal metabolism analysis. The chapter contains multiple visuals and proposes several examples and inferences from real-life applications to help clarify the definitions and elements presented. This should help better understand the showcased theoretical notions, and make it easier for the reader to transfer or translate them to any context. In addition, the reader will be acquainted with the rationale and the concepts that are in the background of the SUSTAIN simulation and the incorporated board game.

Natalia Ciobanu, Camelia Onofrei

2. Sustainable Urban Mobility

Abstract

The current chapter aims to introduce and familiarize young people (the potential policy makers of tomorrow) with basic notions and principles of urban mobility, show them the challenges, educate them on sustainable urban mobility planning and motivate them to become active agents of change. The topics covered are (1) EU actions on supporting urban mobility, (2) The modern approach on mobility planning—Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning and (3) The participatory approach of mobility planning. Rather than treating exhaustively the subject, success is consider if at the end of the current chapter reading and the conduction of the self-assessment exercises, the reader will have obtained a flavour of the particular topic and will be interested in searching and learning more for sustainable mobility.

Glykeria Myrovali, Maria Morfoulaki

3. Decision Making in the Context of Sustainability

Abstract

The current chapter is focused on the foundations of decision aid especially in the context of sustainability. For that reasons, there is a formal definition and description of the decision making process and where in that process mathematical methods can assist decision makers. The main parts of the chapter deal with three of the most well-known Multi-Criteria Decision Aid methods: Data Envelopment Analysis, PROMETHEE and AHP. Throughout the text several examples are provided especially from the field of sustainability be it in the form of urban societal metabolism, urban transportation or from board games. Finally, extra material, notes and videos are provided to help the reader gain a more deep understanding of the matters.

Georgios Tsaples, Jason Papathanasiou, Panagiota Digkoglou

4. System Dynamics Modelling for Urban Sustainability

Abstract

The current chapter introduces the reader to the Systems Thinking approach used to foster the understanding of urban dynamics and the awareness about the associated complexities, recognizing the need of thinking in systems about the urban sustainability. Such approach was based on an illustrative System Dynamics simulation model, specifically developed for this study, and intended to allow the students to perform simplified experiments in an Interactive Learning Environment (ILE). In detail, the simulation model offers the possibility of identifying and testing hypothetical scenarios relating to possible strategies for pursuing sustainable urban development, to be balanced between different needs of transport, construction, services and environmental quality.

This chapter provides for a brief introduction to System Dynamics (SD), the quantitative dimension of Systems Thinking, by presenting the key principles and describing the essential tools, mentioning the previous SD literature on (Urban) Sustainability. Then, the SD model, hereafter named SUSTAIN Model, is presented in detail. The last part of the chapter offers some insights on scenario analysis supported by the SUSTAIN Model, and about the key learning points that might be identified while interacting with it. External links to the original sources are also provided.

Stefano Armenia, Federico Barnabè, Alessandro Pompei, Rocco Scolozzi

5. Translating Models into a Game Design

Abstract

Authors aim at showing how abstract notions can be translated to game elements without losing their meaning. Authors provide a detailed explanation of the process of translating models of real-life systems into rules and elements of a board game. Furthermore, the authors provide a state-of-the-art on overview of board games that deal with sustainability issues, focusing on their advantages and disadvantage that were identified based on the past research on serious games.

Michalina Kułakowska, Aleksandra Solińska-Nowak

6. The Board Game

Abstract

The SUSTAIN board game is not a didactic game but a game designed for teaching. Typically, managerial didactics make use of “playful” but not strictly “playing” tools: gamification solutions are not infrequent in didactics, but they are precisely didactic tools, which exhaust their function in conveying information contents within controlled and extremely piloted environments, often coordinated by a facilitator to whom all forms of mediation and interaction between players are delegated. Alternatively, board games or role-playing games are used in didactics, or playful environments (such as “adventure parks”) to reinforce transversal skills such as leadership, teamwork or highlight negative dynamics within working groups. In these cases, the skills conveyed are almost never vertical, strongly linked to the contents of the courses, but generic as they are based on commercial games created for purposes other than training.

SUSTAIN’s challenge, instead, was to create a real board game, playable in itself even outside of training environments, but which would still serve as a support tool for educational activities by conveying the vertical contents in an experiential way. This challenge, we feel we can say, has been won; and this thanks to the collaboration of an extremely varied and competent team that has seen in Ergo Ludo Editions only the last link in a very strong chain.

Luigi Ferrini

Backmatter

Titel: Urban Sustainability
herausgegeben von: Jason Papathanasiou
Dr. Georgios Tsaples
Anastasia Blouchoutzi
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-67016-0
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-67015-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67016-0

Springer Professional

Über dieses Buch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Societal Metabolism: A Brief Introduction

2. Sustainable Urban Mobility

3. Decision Making in the Context of Sustainability

4. System Dynamics Modelling for Urban Sustainability

5. Translating Models into a Game Design

6. The Board Game

Backmatter

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