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The project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, develops new methods for the transfer of knowledge of regional geography to schoolchildren in a playful way and stimulating their interest in regional geographic issues. Previous attempts hardly reach this target group in particular. It is not only in school lessons that there is a constant lack of teaching material that uses new media to prepare appropriate content in a contemporary form for out-of-school learning locations.

In this project, the IfL project team works together with the Naturpark Barnim (Praxispartner) in Wandlitz. Together with schools in the region, the project uses concrete examples in the nature park to explore the multi-layered experience of human-made landscapes and their changes on a wide variety of levels. Therefore, the basic functions of digital games for smartphones and tablets are being developed and tested; in the first phase of the three-year project, three excursion games have been created on different phenomena and developments in urban and non-urban environments: Participants can retrace the history of the use of a people's park, deal with the problem of vacant buildings and their subsequent use as well as with questions of neighborhood development, or even follow the historical transformation of a landscape from a sewage farm to a recreational area in fast motion. In particular, the interaction between the digital experience and being physically on site improves the way information and contexts are absorbed and processed. This has been shown in initial field tests with schoolchildren.

In the game format currently being developed on the Schiffshebewerk in Niederfinow, the methods are being diversified in terms of embedding learning videos and character animations in order to try out further possibilities of the digital approach. In order to make the offer suitable for school lessons (9th/10th grade), the game story was also designed in alignment with the curricula of the federal states of Berlin-Brandenburg (geography) and the orientation framework of education for sustainable development (ESD) and adapted to current needs at schools in the region.

A critical-reflexive analysis of the game production is planned for the evaluation phase of the project. Based on the results, the project team will develop process descriptions and recommendations that will make it possible to transfer methods of game-based knowledge transfer (digital game-based learning) both to other extracurricular learning locations and to other subject didactics.

Results/Publications

Beta versions of three digital excursion games

Stintzing, Maximilian / Stephan Pietsch (2021): SpielRäume. Landschaft im Kontext digitaler Vermittlung multiperspektivisch erfahren? In: Wintzer, Jeannine / Mossig, Ivo / Angela Hof (Hrsg.): Prinzipien, Strukturen und Praktiken geographischer Hochschullehre. Bern: Haupt, S. 353–366.

Ott, Louisa / Feilner, Manuel / Pietsch, Stephan / Lämmchen, Robert ( 2021): Stadtentwicklung spielend erleben – Mit der Dampflok durch den Leipziger Osten. In: Landschaften in Deutschland online. URL: http://landschaften-in-deutschland.de/themen/78_b_167-parkbogen-ost/

Pietsch, Stephan / Lämmchen, Robert (2021): Spielend lernen. In: IfL-Blog [Weblog], 10 March 2021. Online publication: https://blog.leibniz-ifl.de/2021/03/spielend-lernen/ Acces date: 11.03.2021

Pietsch, Stephan / Stintzing, Maximilian / Heyer, Ines (2020): SpielRäume – Entdeckungs- und Erlebnisraum Landschaft. In: GW-Unterricht 160, S. 37–49. https://doi.org/10.1553/gw-unterricht160s37

Stintzing, Maximilian / Pietsch, Stephan / Wardenga, Ute (2020): How to Teach „Landscape“ Through Games? In: Edler, Dennis / Jenal, Corinna / Kühne, Olaf (Hrsg.): Modern Approaches to the Visualization of Landscapes. Wiesbaden. S. 333–349.

Pietsch, Stephan / Lämmchen, Robert (2020): Digitale Spiele als Lernräume? In: ifl.blog [weblog], 5. Nov. 2020. Online-publication: https://blog.leibniz-ifl.de/2020/11/digitale-exkursionsspiele-als-lernraeume Access date: 6.11.2020

Kallinich, Vera / Lämmchen, Robert /  Pietsch, Stephan / Stintzing, Maximilian (2020): Die Geschichte des Leipziger Mariannenparks. In: Landschaften in Deutschland Online. URL: landschaften-in-deutschland.de/themen/78_b_156-mariannenpark/, Stand 15.04.2020