Workshop title: A Role-Playing Game for Integrating STEM and the Humanities
Description: This workshop will introduce participants to a role-playing game
designed by WPI students and faculty that simulates a “wicked problem” from late
nineteenth-century Worcester, MA. Participants will learn about STEM-humanities
integration (why it is valuable to students, why it is difficult to deliver) and will then
test out a role-playing game that gives equal weight to science, engineering, and the
humanities (history, theatre, philosophy, literature). Our workshop will spend some
time on student learning outcomes and different assignments designed to teach
information literacy, problem definition, negotiations, urban history, and
engineering in context (sewage treatment processes of the late 19th-century).
Participants will gain access to syllabi, lesson plans, role sheets, and assignments so
that they can use all or parts of this game in their own courses. We will also spend
some time in small groups discussing how the game might be implemented in their
own institutional context.
Objectives: Participants will learn about the advantages of STEM-humanities
integration; will try out a new role-playing game that can integrate STEM and the
humanities within a single course; will gain access to course materials so that they
can experiment with it at their home institution (adapting either an assignment, an
activity, or the entire game); and will gain access to a full suite of materials for
course adaptation.