The Ames Agreement: Role Playing in the Classroom

Over the span of a semester, students can memorize facts and generally explain the science of global climate change; however, they often lack connections to the real world in meaningful ways. To address this gap in their learning, a role-playing, in-class activity was adapted for an upper-level global climate change course to connect their new climate knowledge to a geographic location of interest. At the beginning of the semester, students select a country to represent. Over the subsequent weeks, they complete multiple milestone assignments that help them learn about their chosen countries – their economies, natural resources, climate policies, politics, climate impacts (observed and projected), etc. – and then generate infographics for their classmates about their countries to help in the activity itself. At the end of the semester, several class periods are dedicated to various small and large group discussions in which students address the mitigation, adaptation, and financial wants and needs of their countries and find common ground with each other. The result of these discussions is an agreement they vote on and sign, if they choose. This presentation will share lessons learned from the implementation of this activity in multiple offerings of the course as well as preliminary research findings from one cohort of students.