Project – Overview
This transformative project aims to engage participants in immersive learning environments and to instigate a profound reflection and evaluation process that underscores long-term learning effects.
With a focus on climate change, this project aims to develop a framework for role-playing scenarios tailored to different target groups.
Our scenarios are designed for direct use by the target groups, e.g., education or business, and can be customized to meet individual requirements, allowing them to explore and tackle critical issues and transformations within their societies.
By fostering 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, empathy, creativity and collaboration, the project directly contributes to realizing the UN SDGs related to health, education, equality, sustainable communities, and justice. It offers a pathway to transformative education, preparing individuals to tackle challenges in their everyday lives and beyond. The project will design two sample scenarios as so-called edu-larps (educational live-action role-plays), one dealing with the complexities of climate change and mental health and the other focusing on the nuances of transcultural interactions regarding nutrition practices and food waste. Each will be linked to relevant initiatives, encouraging participants to take responsible action and thus promoting agency.
Immersive learning scenarios promote changes in perspective, enabling participants to understand and appreciate diverse viewpoints. Participants are expected to develop a deeper understanding of the complexities tied to sustainability and equity and to foster intrinsic motivation for creative solutions. This comprehensive approach may equip participants to contribute to societal transformation, aligning their efforts with the SDGs.
Analyzing their long-term learning effects and building upon the evaluation of the sample edu-larps, the project aspires to develop a generative AI-powered role-play configurator. This tool will enable others, e.g., educators and social workers, to prepare similar experiences.
The project presents a model for how creative engagement combined with reflection and evaluation may contribute to cultivating skills, understanding, and motivation essential for creating a more just and sustainable world.
① The project aims to design exemplary edu-larps scenarios during workshops in Kyoto and in project meetings in Heidelberg and Göttingen. The edu-larps will align with SDGs, emphasizing good health and well-being (SDG 3), climate action (SDG 13), reducing inequalities (SDG 10), quality education (SDG 4), and promoting peace and justice (SDG 16). It will develop two sample scenarios, one addressing climate change’s impact on mental health (A) and another exploring the nuances of transcultural interactions about nutrition practices and food waste across cultures (B). These scenarios are designed to foster critical thinking and empathy, addressing related challenges in modern societies. Post-play activities will encourage participants to create or support NGOs’ efforts in adaptation and mitigation.
③ Through repeated evaluations, we aim to identify key design elements that will inform the development of the LLM-powered configurator, which we plan to release to the public as an OER. Our framework will offer a detailed guide to ensure adaptability and relevance in various environments. It will be implemented into a digital tool powered by large language models (LLMs), designed to assist educators, professionals, and social workers in crafting customized scenarios for their specific needs. This LLM-powered configurator will simplify the creation of effective and engaging edu-larps that address the distinct challenges and opportunities in their respective fields.
Edu-larps, akin to improv theatre without an audience combined with added game mechanics, enable co-creative storytelling. After the game, guided by the organizers, participants will discuss the jointly crafted story, the emotions they experienced, insights gained about the subject matter, and personal perspectives derived from assuming their characters’ roles. This often emotional engagement fosters deep learning, embedding the experiences in participants’ long-term memories and potentially inspiring more proactive behaviors.
② We will further develop a framework for their scientific evaluation. The limited number of runs for many edu-larps, often just one or two, complicates the assessment of their effectiveness. Distinguishing between successes attributable to the game’s design versus those resulting from player agency or fortunate combinations of participants becomes challenging.
The impact of educational live-action role-plays (edu-larps) is well-documented, yet the evidence often remains anecdotal. Larps are increasingly utilized in youth and civic education, often with state funding in Scandinavian countries, but are less widely adopted in other contexts. Edu-larps emphasize post-play debriefing, where participants reflect on the experience and make connections to their everyday lives. However, comprehensive scientific evaluations or long-term follow-ups of edu-larps are lacking. While pre-post-test assessments of learning effects are rare, they have yielded positive results. Nonetheless, no longitudinal studies have yet examined how these experiences influence participants’ everyday decisions and interactions.
