A serious game for building problem solving skills in engineering and economics

Overview

Goals

The goal of the HERA serious game is to develop problem-solving skills among engineering and economics higher education students, building their capacity to address emerging 21st century societal and industry challenges. HERA exposes students to challenges inspired by real life, the solution to which requires the integration of interdisciplinary knowledge, emulating industry problem solving processes. The HERA serious game aims to enrich classroom engagement and interaction, promoting experimentation, collaboration, independent learning, communication, and presentation skills desirable.

Learning Objectives

To develop problem-solving skills among engineering and economics students by tackling non-trivial challenges inspired by real-life. The game builds: - Problem-solving capacity. - Critical and analytical thinking. - Collaboration capacity. The game further links education to real life and the world of work through the implementation of learning scenarios inspired by actual industry and societal challenges.

Context

The HERA game aims to build the capacity of engineering and economics students to address 21st century challenges by developing problem solving skills, which are imperative today for addressing pressing issues such as sustainable growth, quality in education, sustainable natural resource management, mitigating climate change, addressing natural risks, fighting poverty, informing global health, and more. The challenges that global society faces are daunting and the design of solutions is pressing for promoting well-being and equity. Solutions to these challenges involve the combination of knowledge from diverse scientific areas. HERA introduces students to an environment that simulates how teams work in real life and encourages them to collaborate in interdisciplinary groups, to combine knowledge, to evaluate information, to prioritize, to effectively allocate resources, and to follow a project implementation timeline.