Replanet. A Board Game for Climate Change Education

Climate change represents one of the most urgent and complex challenges of our time, with significant impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human societies. Addressing this crisis requires an interdisciplinary approach, in which design can play a central role as a tool for mediating across different domains of knowledge. Environmental education is essential to provide the cognitive and practical tools needed to understand and respond to the climate crisis; however, communicating these issues effectively remains especially complex. In this context, educational games have proven to be effective teaching tools, fostering learning through interactive and immersive processes. Board games offer the possibility to model real-world scenarios in an accessible and comprehensible way, encouraging reflection on the dynamics of climate change through carefully designed mechanics that create meaningful shared experiences. This paper presents the RePlanet research project, which focuses on the design and validation of a cooperative game aimed at raising awareness among upper secondary school students about the challenges of ecological transition. The game simulates the decision-making processes required to achieve global decarbonization by 2050. By adopting roles with differentiated objectives, players are required to negotiate strategies for emission reduction, balancing environmental, economic, and social interests, while reconciling local priorities with global goals. The cooperative approach to problem-solving reflects the necessity of collective action to effectively address the climate crisis. Furthermore, the game exposes players to a wide range of information, strategies, and issues, both directly—through specifically designed game materials—and indirectly, as they experience the potential consequences of their strategic choices. Experimental testing conducted with a sample of students revealed that the use of this tool led to an improved understanding of climate-related issues and heightened awareness of the importance of cooperation. These findings demonstrate that RePlanet can serve as an effective educational resource, capable of translating complex concepts into an engaging and instructive gaming experience.