Online Gaming for Sustainable Common Pool Resource Management and Tragedy of the Commons Prevention

Tragedy of the commons is a well-known concept concerning the use, or rather abuse, of common pool resources. Educating those involved by teaching the long-term consequences of overuse and the benefits of sustainability is important to preserving natural resources. To study the effects that different institutions and characteristics had on participants, a web-based water sharing game called Irrigania was used as a tool to analyze different scenarios and facilitate better understanding of the externalities associated with governance and management of common pool resources in a class of graduate civil and environmental engineering students at the University of Central Florida. Game-based learning has been found to increase soft skills, such as critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and teamwork through multiple orientations of learning theory. Preliminary use of Irrigania has identified communication, cooperation, information disclosure and social learning as factors promoting a shift towards sustainable resource use.