Climate anxie-teaching cryosphere concepts through playful geography.

Cutscene 1 Game Theory:
My PhD will investigate the value of playful cryosphere geography in building young peoples' climate
knowledge and resilience.
This transects:
1. The Governments 2022 policy paper on the role of education in sustainability and climate change
(Gov, 2022).
2. University of Exeter's 2030 Strategy spotlighting the climate emergency (UoE, 2021b).
For these initiatives, the linchpin of combating our climate emergency is education. This combined with
the flourishing geographical literature on the benefits of playful learning, see for example Catling (2006)
or Pászto et al. (2021), shows my study as pedagogically opportune. Play in education has been wellresearched
as both concept and tool, including through, ludic geographies, for example exploring adults'
experience of play (Woodyer, 2012), "edutainment" examining the cognitive benefits of play (Robinson,
Hardman and Matley, 2021), play and early environment perception (Catling, 2006), or using game in A
Level (Ellaway-Barnard, 2018) and GCSE study (Spencer, 2014).
The challenge then, is not to reaffirm the value of playful education, but to link this to climate resilience.
Play and resilience are closely linked as play can convert larger problems to manageable tasks, a
proactive framework for "Global Issues" (United Nations, no date). However, this connection is not
uncomplicated. UK secondary education emphasises written communication, which is not exclusive of
play, but is an alternative educational approach. The novelty of my project therefore emanates in
converting play to climate awareness supported by the ability to express this through written examination.
This places students in the optimum position to combat and communicate our climate emergency.

Cutscene 2 Ice Flows:
"The game is called Ice Flows - because it does!" (Le Brocq, 2021a, n.p.)
I will ground my project through focussing on and around Ice Flows, developed by Dr Anne Le Brocq,
University of Exeter. Ice Flows is a multi-stage single-player online game, which explores inputs and
outputs within the cryosphere. The base gameplay is a manipulable ice sheet simulation. Players control
snow fall, sea temperature, and air temperature to complete a series of tasks e.g., navigating penguins to
fish, without being caught by leopard seals (demonstrating one of the fictionalised elements). The game's
premise uses play to teach climate balance, supported by downloadable teaching resources (Le Brocq,
2021b).

Cutscene 3 Playful versus game-based learning:
I have purposefully chosen playful - rather than game-based - learning as my conceptual framework
because playful encompasses the affective and atmospheric qualities of learning around games. Pászto
et al. (2021, p. 2) described "a game, as a rule-based framework" highlighting the structured nature of
games. However, 'play' is fluid and felt enjoyment which is not attributed to one activity - see James (2022)
for an encompassing review of play. Therefore, playful learning encourages exploration of the atmosphere
around and through Ice Flows. Conceptually, this opens the study to 'filler games', understanding learning
as not only occurring during the game, but around the game.

Game objectives (research questions):
What is the impact of play on student perception of climate learning?
How does playful learning influence the depth of cryosphere knowledge gained?
What is the role of playful learning in preparing for written assessment?