Dr. Xoni Ma, the Founder and Education Director of OWLHK, found that ‘board games’ are sound means for environmental education in his doctoral research. ‘Take Action! Youth Biodiversity Conservation Leadership Training Scheme’, also founded by Dr. Ma, was the first time where board games were adopted in his teaching activities. The degree of students’ response, their participation and learning effectiveness left him a deep impression.
Therefore, after the establishment of OWLHK, launching Hong Kong’s first board game on the theme of local ecology became the primary goal. The founders worked hand in hand with interns, graphic and game designers to develop the prototype of the board game over a year. From the number of cards, to the ecological concepts underlaid in the entire game; from the initial chessboard in black and white, to the colourful illustrations on each cards, the board game had undergone hundreds of tests and improvements to strive for the ideal balance between entertainments and educational purposes.
However, as a start-up corporate, capital is a huge challenge. Thus, we chose to prepare the production of ‘Law of the Forest’ through crowdfunding. The results utterly amazed us! We reached the target of crowdfunding by three times as much of it. ‘Law of the Forest’ was finally released in May 2018!
We also made great use of the ‘Law of the Forest’ as a key teaching tool of the ‘Environmental and Conservation Fund - Joyful Learning in Forest Ecology - Board Game, Outdoor, Environmental Education’. In the project, we trained 60 tertiary students as environmental education instructors for the board game. They in turn led and instructed 36 sessions of board game environmental education activities. Based on the responses from around 900 questionnaires, the activity had flourishingly strengthened tertiary students’ interest in the environment. The level of environmental knowledge, passion and awareness of ecology of secondary school students was also significantly increased. All the achievements in this project affirm the role of board games in local environmental education.
To meticulously invent a fun and pedagogical board game, a lot of effort must be made throughout the production process. Delving into the educational purposes, ‘Law of the Forest’ theming Hong Kong’s forest ecology had posed fundamental challenges. They included selecting handful of representative species out of the rich biodiversity, reflecting the complex reality of ecosystem and ensuring the right concepts to be delivered. While keeping the game entertaining, a comprehensive game mechanism is needed to ensure the game running smooth and being challenging. Otherwise, the entire learning experience will be impacted if the game is set too easy or difficult. ‘Law of Forest’ blended in the fun part of board game and ecological knowledge to meet the abovementioned needs and teaching purposes.
For ‘Law of the Forest’ to be effectively utilized in Hong Kong’s environmental education, the playing time of the board games, the age and the number of players are all designed according to local teaching needs. For example, the main targets of the game are senior primary students studying General Studies and junior secondary students studying Science. This explains the design of game mechanism was directly addressed to specific topics in the school curriculum. Sophisticated concepts were transformed into simpler ideas to deliver messages, expanding player groups to be pupils of age eight or above. To facilitate in-class education, the number of players and playing time per game was set to match with ordinary school teaching. All these considerations are incorporated into this board game.
The objective of publishing and publicizing ‘Law of the Forest’ is to set an example and to set the next step in local development and application of educational board games in environmental education.
In fact, there is always a need for local eco-board games. We are looking forward to possible opportunities of cooperation to develop more diversified local board games for environmental education. By letting schools, environmental education organizations and general public knowing the benefits of board game education and utilizing it, we aim at popularizing board game for environmental education.