Supporting Disaster Resilience Spatial Thinking with Serious GeoGames

Project Lily Pad

Bibliographic Data

ID22034036
AuthorsBrian Tomaszewski (0000-0002-3922-9860, Rochester Institute of Technology), Amy Walker (0000-0002-6383-5633, Rochester Institute of Technology), Emily Gawlik (Rochester Institute of Technology), Emily A Gawlik (Rochester Institute of Technology), Casey Lane (Rochester Institute of Technology), Scott Williams (0000-0002-1357-0884, Rochester Institute of Technology), Deborah Orieta (Rochester Institute of Technology), Claudia McDaniel (Rochester Institute of Technology), Matthew Plummer (0000-0003-0996-0211, Rochester Institute of Technology), Anushka Nair (0000-0003-3876-6792, Rochester Institute of Technology), Nicolas San Jose (Rochester Institute of Technology), Nathan Terrell (Rochester Institute of Technology), Kyle Pecsok (Rochester Institute of Technology), Emma Thomley (Rochester Institute of Technology), Erin Mahoney (Rochester Institute of Technology), Emily Haberlack (Rochester Institute of Technology), David Schwartz (0000-0002-3989-8546, Rochester Institute of Technology, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume9
Issue6
Pages405
Publication date2020-06-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2220-9964 • E-ISSN: 2220-9964
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/ijgi9060405
OpenAlexW3036221483
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited33

The need for improvement of societal disaster resilience and response efforts was evident after the destruction caused by the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. We present a novel conceptual framework for improving disaster resilience through the combination of serious games, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial thinking, and disaster resilience. Our framework is implemented via Project Lily Pad, a serious geogame based on our conceptual framework, serious game case studies, interviews and real-life experiences from 2017 Hurricane Harvey survivors in Dickinson, TX, and an immersive hurricane-induced flooding scenario. The game teaches a four-fold set of skills relevant to spatial thinking and disaster resilience, including reading a map, navigating an environment, coding verbal instructions, and determining best practices in a disaster situation. Results of evaluation of the four skills via Project Lily Pad through a “think aloud” study conducted by both emergency management novices and professionals revealed that the game encouraged players to think spatially, can help build awareness for disaster response scenarios, and has potential for real-life use by emergency management professionals. It can be concluded from our results that the combination of serious games, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial thinking, and disaster resilience, as implemented via Project Lily Pad and our evaluation results, demonstrated the wide range of possibilities for using serious geogames to improve disaster resilience spatial thinking and potentially save lives when disasters occur

Cartography · Conceptual framework · Emergency management · Environmental resource management · Geographic information system · Geography · Knowledge management · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Educational Games and Gamification · Environmental Science · Geographic Information Systems Studies · Geography Education and Pedagogy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access