After hours spent building imaginary power plants and wiring one-dimensional cities, Larry Falkin lets out a cheer in the Sharonville Library conference room.
The longtime sustainability professional and Sierra Club member just won Power Grid, an energy-focused board game.
His fellow players offer quick congratulations, then they all resume their conversation about the network laid out in front of them.
“Do you have any insights into the utility market?” Falkin asks.
Environmental issues like these can often be tough to understand — and talk about. Falkin and the local Sierra Club chapter are taking an unusual approach to keep the conversation going. They’re hosting eco-themed board game meetups.
Board games as 'arenas for discussion'
Every month, more than a dozen people come together to play games that somehow relate to the environment. Falkin says many offer simplified lessons in sustainability.
“The real world is different and the real world is more complicated, but you get a chance to see it in a distilled version,” Falkin said.
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In recent years, people have made more environmentally focused board games. They range from Cascadia, where players match habitat and wildlife tokens to build ecosystems, to Daybreak, where they work together to stop climate change.
Environmental board game researcher Kristoffer Fjællingsdal says many are “arenas for discussion” through their design and objectives. He’s a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and one of the few people around the world studying environmental games.
“They allow you to envision different scenarios and they also allow you to experience the viewpoints and the attitudes of people who you might disagree with — and you might have interesting discussions with them,” Fjællingsdal said.
That’s distinct from forms of more traditional communication about environmental issues, like nonfiction books or news media.
Fjællingsdal says millions of people already play games daily. If game creators keep making experiential environmental games, more gamers are likely to play them. That could have serious implications for sustainability.
“Playing environmental games is yet another tool in this increasingly big toolbox around this large-scale, international attitude change that we are trying to do where we have to act more sustainably in the future — if we want to have a future,” Fjællingsdal said.
A new perspective
The games’ effectiveness all depends on how players engage with the topics on the board.
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Scott Hudson is one of the Power Grid players at the library. He’s a retired science teacher, but he says at first, he just came to the meetup as a fan of playing board games in general.
“I was wondering what kind of games they were going to have, but it was many of the games I've already played, and I hadn't thought about them as environmentally based,” Hudson said.
Having gone to half a dozen meetups, Hudson has a new perspective on the games — and the topics they explore. He says he’s not only appreciated playing, but also discussing issues like habitat fragmentation and the electricity market with his fellow players.
As the group folds up the board game and puts the wooden fuel pieces back in the box, Falkin starts talking about the lessons people learned that night. But, he says he’s hopeful game nights like these will yield more than conversation.
“There's an old saying that we only fight for what we love, and we only love what we know,” Falkin said.
He says the end goal is getting people more familiar with sustainability and encouraging them to turn that knowledge into advocacy.
If playing board games is one way to get there, he’s willing to roll those dice.