The Role of Simulation and Serious Games in Teaching Concepts on Circular Economy and Sustainable Energy

Abstract

The prevailing need for a more sustainable management of natural resources depends not only on the decisions made by governments and the will of the population, but also on the knowledge of the role of energy in our society and the relevance of preserving natural resources. In this sense, critical work is being done to instill key concepts—such as the circular economy and sustainable energy—in higher education institutions. In this way, it is expected that future professionals and managers will be aware of the importance of energy optimization, and will learn a series of computational methods that can support the decision-making process. In the context of higher education, this paper reviews the main trends and challenges related to the concepts of circular economy and sustainable energy. Besides, we analyze the role of simulation and serious games as a learning tool for the aforementioned concepts. Finally, the paper provides insights and discusses open research opportunities regarding the use of these computational tools to incorporate circular economy concepts in higher education degrees. Our findings show that, while efforts are being made to include these concepts in current programs, there is still much work to be done, especially from the point of view of university management. In addition, the analysis of the teaching methodologies analyzed shows that, although their implementation has been successful in favoring the active learning of students, their use (especially that of serious games) is not yet widespread.

Learning through Play: A Serious Game as a Tool to Support Circular Economy Education and Business Model Innovation

“…The purpose of game-based learning is to educate players by embedding learning outcomes in game content, creating a 'serious game' that is focused on engaging the user to achieve predefined objectives, promoting learning and behavioural change, rather than mere entertainment [33,44]. In the past few decades, there has been a proliferation of research and review articles on the design and use of serious games in higher education as an alternative to traditional teaching methods [33,42,45,46], and also in the field of sustainability education [27,37,47,48]. Gamification principles such as achievable goals, progression paths, strategy options, immediate feedback, levels, points, rewards, competition, and cooperation encourage players to take on different roles, experiment with different options, and reflect on their choices and behaviour [48,49].…”

“…Simulation tools are especially suitable to demonstrate and model the systemic complexity of circular economy and its multifaceted challenges, interactions, and trade-offs [47]. The board game Risk&RACE was designed as a business simulation game, incorporating a selection of elements that are fundamental to running a production company (e.g., employees, material and product stocks, sales strategies) against the narrative of a real-world scenario of external factors (e.g., resource scarcity, market forces, technological developments, policy changes) (Figure 1).…”

“…Figure 2 indicates how the investment options are part of the complex dynamic of multiple feedback and feedforward loops used to simulate business operations and external events impacting the business. The main challenge during the serious game developmentas also highlighted by de la Torre et al [47]-was finding a balance between creating a realistic narrative (e.g., activities, market dynamics, policy constraints, environmental constraints, technological solutions) and managing the game's complexity (e.g., rules, number of decision options, game elements) in order to maintain intuitive, enjoyable gameplay.…”

Green Transition: The Frontier of the Digicircular Economy Evidenced from a Systematic Literature Review

“…the barriers that hinder the use of technologies such as the use of IoT [59][60][61], or big data [62][63][64][65][66]. Among other technologies, some authors propose the use of simulations to produce an economic analysis of the processes or as tool to train [67][68][69][70][71]. Some other investigate the use of additive manufacturing for various applications such as the use of materials with a lower environmental impact [72][73][74].…”

Serious Games in Secondary Education to Introduce Circular Economy: Experiences With the Game EcoCEO

“…Their quality criteria are: (1) clear goals, (2) focus on the characterizing goal, (3) indispensability of the characterizing goal, (4) correctness of the domain expert content, (5) appropriate feedback on progress, (6) appropriate rewards, (7) proof of effectiveness and (8) use of game awards or ratings. Furthermore, De la Torre et al (2021) describes specific characteristics to make serious games useful to teach about the circular economy and sustainable energy. Important elements besides their research are a high level of realism, implementing consideration of multiple aspects at once in each game decision so that players recognize the non-linearity of their decision-making process and covering all stages of the circular economy.…”