Playfully protecting the climate: co-creation of a climate policy negotiation serious game with school students for the city of Vienna

At the centre of the project Vienna Climate Games was the co-creation of a serious game, in the form of a climate action card game, together with Viennese school students. The motivation behind designing a game was to create an educational tool that will allow school students to explore the dynamics of climate policymaking. The game allows young people to gain insights into the roles played by interests and resources in politics by adopting different roles and negotiating climate policy measures for the City of Vienna from this range of perspectives. This is in answer to the commonly held frustration over the disconnect between climate science and policy measures to reduce emissions. However, the process of co-creation was also paramount in order for the range of opinions on climate policy held by young people, beyond ‘Generation Greta’, to be reflected in the game. As a result, four different young people are included as actors in the game, drawn directly from data gathered with and from students from schools across Vienna. In this paper we reflect on the process of co-creation of a climate action card game with young people, including our use of workshops, future scenarios, Q-method, expert interviews, and various rounds of game development, testing, and feedback. Furthermore, we draw conclusions that are relevant for engaging young people in designing climate policy measures at the city level. In particular, we highlight the potential for playful solutions, such as serious games, to open the door for young people to engage concretely in shaping climate policy outputs