- To Bee: In a world without Bees, life revolves around food scarcity.
Designer
Beth is a natural scientist who specializes in pollinators. She is very concerned about the multiple stresses on pollinators in SE Queensland and is active in community awareness projects. She helped create a story world for a table-top role playing game called ‘To Bee’. In this future speculative world, pollinators have mostly disappeared and communities are living with food scarcity and crisis. Beth wants students to experience this speculative future so that she can share her knowledge in a meaningful way.
Teacher
Leigh is an upper middle school teacher. She is currently taking a unit on Environmental Studies[1] with a year 8 cohort. She has no background in table-top RPGs but she has used some role play in the classroom previously and she likes the idea of giving her students opportunity to put themselves into a world where some of the issues they have been discussing in class have actually taken place. She has decided to use ‘To Bee’ in order to engage her students. She particularly likes the story and characters provided with the game book because it focuses on a group of young people who could be the same age as her students.
- I Robot: What has your human done this time!?
Designer
Merry is STEM practitioner who specializes in robotics and robots in Aged Care contexts. She is very concerned with the potential ethical issues of her field but very enthusiastic about the potential for robots to become companions for isolated seniors. Merry helped create a game world called “I Robot” set in a future time where every individual has a personal robot companion from birth. The twist is that the players can only take on robot characters.
Teacher
Joel is a QLD year 10 teacher. He is currently taking subjects in Humanities and Social Sciences and is focusing on Civics and Citizenship[2]. His students are prepared to be engaged but they find some of the materials a bit preachy. Joel is looking for a different approach to scaffolding discussions about the ways that groups within society perceive each other and has decided to use “I Robot” as an activity. Joel hasn’t played any table-top RPGs but he is a keen board game player and he really likes the way that playing analog games is a very social activity. He thinks his students will benefit from taking on the characters of the robots in “I Robot” and if they enjoy playing he is considering using the toolkit to get the students to design their own game world.
[1] Science and technology contribute to finding solutions to a range of contemporary issues; these solutions may impact on other areas of society and involve ethical considerations (ACSHE135)
https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p_10/ac_science_yr8.pdf
[2] How groups within society perceive each other and relate to one another. https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p_10/ac_humanities_social_sciences_p-10_sub-strand_illustrations.pdf