MC Gaming Students Receive Proclamation from County Council

Students in Professor Deborah Solomon's board game design class won first place among all college students in the national Arctic Climate Game Jam contest. Congratulations to Peter Berg, Dustin Snowadsky and Ben Hemphill for their winning game "Sea Level Slow Up!" To see photos from the Proclamation, chick here. https://www.flickr.com/photos/montgomerycollege/sets/72157689287682515/with/36930533150/ In this non-digital game, players work cooperatively as Arctic Circle neighbors (USA, Canada and Russia) to reach carbon neutrality so that they do not become flooded due to sea level rise. The game takes place in a literal body of water (an actual tub of water with floating wooden boards representing each country) and is a fun way to teach middle school students about climate issues in the Arctic. The game will be featured on the Games for Change website, as well as on the Climate Game Jam website and via the contest's social media channels. There may be a presentation at the Smithsonian in the fall. The students completed their game as part of a environmental game design assignment in TECH 295 (a new board game/analog game design class, developed with support from Perkins grant funding). This page shows the contest winners since the contest began in 2014: http://climategamejam.org/finalists (MC placed last year as well with a Virtual Reality game about fire-fighting in drought situations. The 2016 winners, along with other MC gaming students, presented their climate games last year at a special event at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History.) Here is more info about the Climate Game Jam - it originated as part of climate education initiatives in 2014 by NOAA and the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy: http://climategamejam.org/about