About The Watershed Game: What is it?
The Watershed Game is a proven nonpoint water pollution educational program and interactive tool for local leaders and educators that increases participants’ understanding of the impacts that excess pollutants have on our communities and natural resources. The game enhances understanding of management challenges and solutions while building collaboration skills across stakeholder groups.
The origin of the game was to address the barriers related to engaging local community members on water quality and land use issues and participatory watershed planning and management. Participants apply plans, practices and policies (“tools”) that help them achieve clean water goals for protection and restoration while providing for community growth. Developed by the University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota Sea Grant over 12 years ago, the game has been used in 12 states with over 100 trained facilitators.
The Watershed Game is currently available in two versions, a local leader version for use with adults and a youth classroom version. The local leader version was designed for use with elected and appointed officials, community leaders, watershed organizations and other adult audiences who have a role in developing plans, applying practices or adopting policies integral to water resource management. The local leader version comes in three models: stream, river and lake.
The classroom version is a modification of the stream model that has been adapted for use with middle to high school students. Groups of students work in both small teams and as a whole class to meet a clean water goal. It’s an active hands-on lesson that connects to education standards.
Coastal models development
Local leaders, educators, researchers and water professionals have repeatedly requested an expansion of the Watershed Game to include a focus on coastal and estuarine environments. In response, Minnesota Sea Grant has teamed up with Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant and the University of Alabama’s Alabama Water Institute to expand this tool to focus on the unique needs and priority issues of coastal environments. Based on a series of investigations, the new models will focus on addressing water quality issues by reducing nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment.
Game play
Small-group simulations like the Watershed Game help break down barriers while encouraging civility, dialogue and mutual respect. Participants work in land use teams with limited financial resources to reduce pollutants entering the local waterways. They build resilience to coastal inundation challenges and unexpected events.
The game facilitator guides teams to choose from a variety of solutions or tool cards that promote effective planning, practices and policies to address these issues.
The coastal version of the game will be available in both an adult local leader version and a youth classroom version. Participants learn to consider and involve all land uses within a watershed as they work to achieve their goals.
For the final part of the game, all land use teams must work collaboratively. This element of the game illustrates the value of collaboration and partnerships across various stakeholder groups to plan for and manage water and land use in coastal areas.
Five land uses highlighted in coastal models
- Agriculture - Land used for the production of food, growing of crops, grazing of animals and silviculture.
- Rural Coast - Natural forests, rural residences, working waterfront activities and barrier islands.
- Urban Center - Urban, commercial and developed land with large areas of impervious surface.
- Residential - Suburban and neighborhood-style development, unmanaged stormwater ponds, storm drains.
- Industrial Port - Land with industrial uses including manufacturing, transportation, construction, navigation and extractive industries.
Status and next steps
- Graphic development: The draft game board and tool cards will be completed by Dec. 31, 2019.
- Pilot workshops across the Gulf and Southeast: Workshops will be held in early 2020 to test the new models and gather input regarding improvements.
- Revisions and production: Edits will be made to the coastal models and final versions will be produced in the spring and summer 2020.
- Training workshops and distribution: Workshops will be held to train water resource educators and professionals on the use of the coastal models in the summer and fall 2020.
For more information
Visit watershedgame.umn.edu or contact me at [email protected].
Meet the author
Karen Bareford, Ph.D.
Sea Grant Water Resources Lead
Karen Bareford works with the Alabama Water Institute, the University of Alabama and the National Sea Grant College Program. She provides leadership on water recsource initiatives and efforts... Read more
Phone: 205-348-9719
Email: [email protected]