Case study: Dirty Matters: The Soil Game
Photo acknowledgement: https://soils.org.uk/dirtymatters/
- Secondary
- Indoor
- Game
- United Kingdom
Dirty Matters: The Soil Game
‘Dirty Matters’ is an educational board game created by the British Society of Soil Science. It is designed to increase players’ knowledge of soils and soil health, with a particular focus on showing the importance of soil health for tackling global sustainability challenges including climate change, hunger and water pollution.
As ‘soil guardians’, players work in groups of 2-6 players to make it through six rounds of feeding the earth’s population whilst keeping the waters unpolluted and fighting climate change by harnessing the power of soil.
Objective
The objective of ‘Dirty Matters: The Soil Game’ is to educate players on the physical, chemical and biological properties of soil and the range of factors that affect soil health within these categories. In seeking to develop an understanding of soil as part of a complex and interlinking ecosystem, it aims to illustrate the importance of improving soil health for tackling global sustainability challenges.
Approach
The ‘Dirty Matters’ board game is designed to be suitable for ages of 8 and above. The game uses a fun, creative and engaging format to provide players with information about soil properties and how soil health improvements can be made to restore degraded soils to help mitigate global sustainability challenges in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Based on soil science and developed by researchers, this approach aims to make soil science and soil health education accessible, relevant, applicable and interesting to a wide range of students and disciplinary perspectives.