Description
Since 1997, the China Environment Forum (CEF) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has organized projects, workshops, and exchanges that bring together American and Chinese officials, policy experts, civil society practitioners and others to examine environmental and sustainable development issues and explore opportunities for business, governmental and non-governmental communities to address them collaboratively. Its projects have focused on topics including the water-energy nexus, environmental governance, food safety, water management, and NGO development, in the process building new networks and offering insights and analysis through CEF publications, policy briefings and other events. In 2014 we supported its “Choke Point: Port Cities” project to examine water-energy challenges in Long Beach, Shenzhen and other ports in both countries. Although the primary focus of the Forum’s work is US-China, its efforts also reach more broadly, to India and countries in Southeast Asia. CEF is led by the ebullient Dr. Jennifer Turner, who has an eye for innovative means to educate and advocate by combining research with storytelling through initiatives such as “Storytelling is Serious Business: Communications Capacity-Building for Chinese Environmental Professionals.” The Forum has focused recent attention on plastic pollution. To extend the reach of its research, it is partnering with the Wilson Center’s Serious Games Initiative on “The Plastic Pipeline: A Serious Game for Ocean Plastics Education,” designed to raise public awareness of plastic waste on its journey to the ocean and encourage consumer choices and policies to slow this rising threat to human health and the health of our seas. With funding from the National Geographic Society and the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership, CEF has conducted initial research and created a preliminary prototype for the game. Our grant would assist with the project’s next phase, to develop a full, playable prototype for testing with university and civil society partners in the US, China and Indonesia and move the game closer to public release. “The Plastic Pipeline” will target young adults, who are at the vanguard of environmental activism; NGOs working on plastic waste, who need effective educational tools; and policy leaders, who seek to engage with the subject themselves and for ways to engage their constituents. Once the full prototype is ready, the Department of Education has invited CEF to submit a proposal to expand testing, translate the game into Chinese and Indonesian, and implement outreach and distribution. Additional funding is also likely from NGS, Japan Foundation and the Plastic Solutions Fund. CEF been in conversation with the Northeast Washington [State] Education Service District, the Indonesia Plastic Bag Diet, China Zero Waste Alliance, and others about participation in the research design, testing, and distribution. Turner has also been in touch with LuceSEA grantees working on related topics. The Forum’s proposal begins with the sobering forecast that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. The US and several Asian countries, most prominently China and Indonesia, are major contributors to this global problem. As Turner emphasizes, the game will help make policy and scientific research accessible, give players the agency to test out different policies and predicted outcomes, and equip them with knowledge of potential plastic waste solutions, from creation to use and disposal. These aims align with our program goals in policy and public education. The grant would cover personnel and consultant fees for game development.
Submitted by Helena Kolenda