<p>Modern, educational simulation/games (s/g) have a rich legacy, stretching back to the 1960s.&#160; They are used today for communicating science in educational, environmental or governmental organizations.&#160; Other uses are to help groups and organizations conduct research, solve complex problems or make collective decisions.</p><p>Over the last two decades, a particularly powerful, but underused, form of s/g has developed, called participatory simulation (PS).&#160; It contains (elements of) game, simulation, role-play, experience, human interaction, decision-making, negotiation, engagement, stakeholder, etc.&#160; It is often large scale, open ended, goal and results oriented, free form and data driven.&#160; Of course, debriefing is a crucial component.</p><p>Last summer (2020), the International Oceans-Climate School (IOCS), of the Ocean Open University (OOP), France, planned to organize an in-person summer school with a PS as its capstone event.&#160; We then postponed and made it an autumn school.&#160; It then became clear that this also was impossible, and so, after some hesitation, we scrambled to turn it into an online PS (OPS).</p><p>The theme was &#8220;<em>The Mediterranean and climate change: Impacts, people, action</em>&#8221;.&#160; Our overarching goal was to help participants understand the <strong>oceans-climate nexus</strong> and to become better <strong>ocean-climate-literate stakeholders</strong>.&#160; The IOCS is an official event of the <strong>Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission</strong> (IOC) of UNESCO, as part of the <strong>UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development</strong>.</p><p>The school ran over three days, with the OPS over two days.&#160; We searched for a platform that would accommodate the flexibility needed for the OPS; we chose Discord.&#160; We had participants originating from Brazil, France, India, Italy, Iran, Spain, Tunisia and the UK; ages ranged from 19 to 60 years.&#160; It was a great success.&#160; A detailed, online feedback form two weeks after the event collected participants&#8217; opinions, including:</p><ul><li><em>&#8220;It was a wonderful experience.&#8221;, :I felt very good with all the participants.&#8221;, &#8220;When I describe the experience to friends I always say that it was something really useful for my personal and professional growth.&#8221;, &#8220;It was a very enriching experience for me to meet all these people with different training and knowledge, coming from different countries.&#8221;, &#8220;Enriching moments, so much more to discover.&#8221;, &#8220;What a great experience! I felt happy, engaged and surrounded by beautiful minds.&#8221;</em></li>
</ul><p>We will run the event again in the Spring and the late summer or autumn, with different geoscience themes.&#160; The success of the October 2020 event raises several research questions, including:</p><ul><li>How do the online and the in-person versions compare?</li>
<li>What are the advantages and drawbacks of each?</li>
<li>Which is more effective for what objectives and what results?</li>
<li>How do the two versions stack up in regard to conducting research on such events?</li>
<li>What are the implications of OPS for geoliteracy?</li>
</ul><p>Our presentation will describe the event in more detail, offer tentative answers to the above questions, and help you decide if you wish to participate in the next event.&#160; Co-authors include both organizers and participants.</p>
The Mediterranean Sea system: a review and an introduction to the special issue
