Promoting Civic Thinking through Epistemic Game Play

A growing body of research suggests that computer games can help players learn to integrate knowledge and skills with values in complex domains of real-world problem solving (P. C. Adams, 1998; Barab et al., 2001; Gee, 2003; Shaffer et al., 2005; Starr, 1994). In particular, research suggests that epistemic games—games where players think and act like real world professionals—can link knowledge, skills, and values into professional ways of thinking (Shaffer, 2006). Here, we look at how a ten hour version of the epistemic game Urban Science developed civic thinking in young people as they learned about urban ecology by role-playing as urban planners redesigning a city. Specifically, we ask whether and how overcoming authentic obstacles from the profession of urban planning in the virtual world of a role playing game can link civic values with the knowledge and skills young people need to solve complex social and ecological problems. Our results from coded pre- and post-interviews show that players learned to think of cities as complex systems, learned about skills that planners use to enact change in these systems, and perhaps most important, learned the value of serving the public in that process. Two aspects of the game, tool-as-obstacle and stakeholders-as-obstacle, contributed to the development of players’ civic thinking. Thus, our results suggest that games like Urban Science may help young people—and thus help all of us—identify and address the many civic, economic, and environmental challenges in an increasingly complex, and increasingly urban, world.