FRC Sessions
Read the report on the FRC game sessions by downloading the PDF.
FRC and FRC Team Members in the News:
Nov. 20, 2021 Heather Murdock in The Narwhal: How to build back B.C.'s flood infrastructure better (Click here)
Sep. 30, 2021 Evalyna Bogdan: Play your way to preparedness - Enhancing collective decision-making on flood risk management through a serious game (Click here)
FRC and FRC Team Members in the News:
Nov. 20, 2021 Heather Murdock in The Narwhal: How to build back B.C.'s flood infrastructure better (Click here)
Sep. 30, 2021 Evalyna Bogdan: Play your way to preparedness - Enhancing collective decision-making on flood risk management through a serious game (Click here)
Sechelt's media announces FRC simulation public engagement event
Reflections on the online Flood Resilience Challenge simulation by a 3rd year geography student
The student has provided approval for sharing his reflections and all University of Waterloo ethics protocols were followed upon receiving ethics clearance. The student’s identity is being protected by using a pseudonym.
Hello, my name is [Bob]. And this is my reflection assignment for week three of geography with Professor Baird [at Brock University where the online FRC simulation was piloted]. . .And this was subjectively the most effective learning week for me, primarily due to the Flood Resilience Challenge Game.
Communication and governance structures
This application of our water resource knowledge was so effective in enhancing our communication skills. But furthermore, teaching us the[number] of differing perspectives on water management, you know, it's not just municipal, provincial, and federal, there are so many branches, and they're all interconnected in their own little ways. And you have to see how these people see this as a good thing. And these people say this is a bad thing, but they're so similar. And it showed the communication between all these different opinions can be a very tedious process. Now, for example, I thought, or at least I felt like I was doing the right thing by providing funding towards a dike. And I later found out that a lot of people would rather me spent my money elsewhere doing so.
Experiential learning and tangible objects for facilitating learning, connecting previous and present learning
Now, on that note, I understand what a dike is. . . but getting to physically place it on a map and see how it affects the surrounding community. . . not just the dike, but thinking of all of the construction, the mitigation management processes that you could have implemented. You kept looking in your own head, okay, dam here would affect the upstream like this, the downstream like this, okay? And you'd see, okay, there's the fork here. How is that gonna affect this side, this side?
You really doing this is so much more applicative than sitting and listening to a lecture, I felt like it got my mind racing. And I was implementing all that I'd learned over the past geography courses, obviously, specifically water management courses. And then you'd hear someone else's idea. Completely different than the ideas you had but also a great idea. So not only was it your own mind racing, but everyone else's mind racing, and then you getting to hear their opinions as well was really good in furthering my understanding of previous knowledge that I've gained from other courses as well as this course.
Relationships & Interactions
This game also taught that when it comes to managing a resource necessary for survival, relationships become volatile, I had favorable votes to stay in my position for the first two rounds as the federal representative. But in the third round, when some power company decided that they wanted to portray me as only wanting to support the wealthy, I barely received enough votes to stay in my position there. Even though my strategy wasn't necessarily to help the wealthy it was just to help whomever was vocal about wanting my assistance.
Marginalized voices
In retrospect, while writing this, I really started to think that certain peoples shouldn't have to ask for assistance. Rather, it should be willingly given to them. Some people being shy and not very vocal during this game was quite akin to certain groups of people not having much of a voice, when it comes to facing . . . resource issues like this. My personal friend in the real world, [Anne], she's in this class, and she was playing the role of the First Nations community representative. And we were messaging a little bit throughout the game about the game.
And being the federal government, I knew I was her only economic support system. I told her . . . that if she wants any flood mitigation instruction, just ask me just say it in the Zoom call, say, “Hey, can I have this?” Or “Hey, the First Nations community is interested in this.” But she refused. And I thought it would have been a little odd to randomly go into the [game] round and say that, but then reading this, I thought to myself, well, would it have been that odd just to at least have gone in and started discussion and ask: “Hey, I see you're over here. I'm your primary funding, is there anything I can do for you?” You know, and it ties back to my point of communication from earlier. But luckily, she didn't get affected by any flooding events; however, that was just luck.
Power
But it was very interesting looking at that power dynamics and seeing how it played out in the game, but how played in the game, potentially carrying over to how it could play out in real life? Oh, lastly, I just want to say I decided to make this video as opposed to just a few paragraphs. Just to kind of emphasize that I thought this would be the most engaging form of this assignment. And that's, that was the key to why I learned so much this week three was because I was so engaged and I just wanted to kind of reflect that in this journal.
Download the student's reflection here.
Hello, my name is [Bob]. And this is my reflection assignment for week three of geography with Professor Baird [at Brock University where the online FRC simulation was piloted]. . .And this was subjectively the most effective learning week for me, primarily due to the Flood Resilience Challenge Game.
Communication and governance structures
This application of our water resource knowledge was so effective in enhancing our communication skills. But furthermore, teaching us the[number] of differing perspectives on water management, you know, it's not just municipal, provincial, and federal, there are so many branches, and they're all interconnected in their own little ways. And you have to see how these people see this as a good thing. And these people say this is a bad thing, but they're so similar. And it showed the communication between all these different opinions can be a very tedious process. Now, for example, I thought, or at least I felt like I was doing the right thing by providing funding towards a dike. And I later found out that a lot of people would rather me spent my money elsewhere doing so.
Experiential learning and tangible objects for facilitating learning, connecting previous and present learning
Now, on that note, I understand what a dike is. . . but getting to physically place it on a map and see how it affects the surrounding community. . . not just the dike, but thinking of all of the construction, the mitigation management processes that you could have implemented. You kept looking in your own head, okay, dam here would affect the upstream like this, the downstream like this, okay? And you'd see, okay, there's the fork here. How is that gonna affect this side, this side?
You really doing this is so much more applicative than sitting and listening to a lecture, I felt like it got my mind racing. And I was implementing all that I'd learned over the past geography courses, obviously, specifically water management courses. And then you'd hear someone else's idea. Completely different than the ideas you had but also a great idea. So not only was it your own mind racing, but everyone else's mind racing, and then you getting to hear their opinions as well was really good in furthering my understanding of previous knowledge that I've gained from other courses as well as this course.
Relationships & Interactions
This game also taught that when it comes to managing a resource necessary for survival, relationships become volatile, I had favorable votes to stay in my position for the first two rounds as the federal representative. But in the third round, when some power company decided that they wanted to portray me as only wanting to support the wealthy, I barely received enough votes to stay in my position there. Even though my strategy wasn't necessarily to help the wealthy it was just to help whomever was vocal about wanting my assistance.
Marginalized voices
In retrospect, while writing this, I really started to think that certain peoples shouldn't have to ask for assistance. Rather, it should be willingly given to them. Some people being shy and not very vocal during this game was quite akin to certain groups of people not having much of a voice, when it comes to facing . . . resource issues like this. My personal friend in the real world, [Anne], she's in this class, and she was playing the role of the First Nations community representative. And we were messaging a little bit throughout the game about the game.
And being the federal government, I knew I was her only economic support system. I told her . . . that if she wants any flood mitigation instruction, just ask me just say it in the Zoom call, say, “Hey, can I have this?” Or “Hey, the First Nations community is interested in this.” But she refused. And I thought it would have been a little odd to randomly go into the [game] round and say that, but then reading this, I thought to myself, well, would it have been that odd just to at least have gone in and started discussion and ask: “Hey, I see you're over here. I'm your primary funding, is there anything I can do for you?” You know, and it ties back to my point of communication from earlier. But luckily, she didn't get affected by any flooding events; however, that was just luck.
Power
But it was very interesting looking at that power dynamics and seeing how it played out in the game, but how played in the game, potentially carrying over to how it could play out in real life? Oh, lastly, I just want to say I decided to make this video as opposed to just a few paragraphs. Just to kind of emphasize that I thought this would be the most engaging form of this assignment. And that's, that was the key to why I learned so much this week three was because I was so engaged and I just wanted to kind of reflect that in this journal.
Download the student's reflection here.
Reflections on the online Flood Resilience Challenge simulation by a 4th year geography student
Emily Mills has provided approval for sharing her reflections and all University of Waterloo ethics protocols were followed upon receiving ethics clearance.
Challenged expectations of collaborative governance
The Flood Resilience Challenge (FRC) game was designed to allow players to develop their communication skills while learning about risk management in water governance. In this sense, it is a serious game that encourages players to uphold their stakeholders' values in advocating for specific flood management plans. Hence, I expected that the simulative experience of the FRC game would teach me about the 'ebbs and flows' of collaborative governance. Nonetheless, participating in this game taught me that collaborative management is often disjointed, especially when it involves various stakeholders with differing influences. Ultimately, the 'ebbs and flows' I believed I would witness were absent; thus, my romantic expectations around collaborative governance were challenged.
How power dynamics nullify mutual interests as a point of leverage
I based my original expectations for the FRC game on elements of Emmerson et al.'s (2012) "Logical Model Approach to Collaborative Governance" (p. 7). Specifically, I decided to focus on the "shared motivations" (p. 7) section of this model as I believe—or, rather, believed—that collaboration would be simple if a group of stakeholders could agree on a mutually beneficial commitment and trust one another's capacities to contribute towards achieving that goal. Hence, before the game commenced, I created an extensive document outlining my stakeholder's values, all other stakeholders with the same values, and, therefore, the flood management plans that would benefit all parties. However, this resource was null. I did not account for the fact that my stakeholder, the president of the mobile home area, had little power compared to larger stakeholders, like the politicians. This power dynamic made it challenging to be taken seriously—even among the lower-influence stakeholders with my shared values—during the negotiation periods. Therefore, while I could advocate for implementing my flood management plans, I was perpetually at the 'charity' of the more influential stakeholders.
Finding alternative methods to exercise discurisve power
Nonetheless, Brisbois (2016) outlines that power dynamics have a fundamental and constant influence on the outcome of collaborative approaches to water governance; thus, my feeling of disadvantage as a lower-influence stakeholder was common. In fact, through participating in the game, I experienced all three of Brisbois' (2016) dimensions of power—which, again, was through the guise of a stakeholder being subject to others' control. First, I observed instrumental power. This dimension was the most overt. As a stakeholder with five 'dollars,' I did not have the financial resources of most of the other stakeholders; thus, I could not provide the (unfortunately) necessary incentives to help support my flood management plans. Next, I experienced the importance of structural power. The politicians, most notably the mayor, had complete control over which strategies would be approved. This division of decision-making powers meant that I had to frame all of my flood management plans in a manner that would appeal to their political agenda. Finally, I witnessed—and eventually exercised—discursive power. Concerning the previous dimension, I would craft my phrasing to exploit emotions and manipulate politicians into conforming to my more self-serving plans, like wet-proofing my home. I participated in this dimension of power more near the end of the game as I struggled to make alliances and was bankrupt after a mass flooding event; hence, I abandoned the moral high ground I began with out of desperation. Overall, I attribute my surprise about the presence of power dynamics in the FRC game to my sole focus on Emmerson et al.'s (2012) "shared motivations" (p. 7) section. A more holistic understanding of this model would have helped me recognize that power is deeply embedded in the "systems context" (p. 7) level—or the very foundations of collaborative governance.
Imperfect decisions vs inaction
Ultimately, I found the FRC game to be a frustrating but insightful experience of collaborative governance. It taught me that, in the real world, stakeholders have intersecting motivations that complicate their willingness to agree on decisions, even when these decisions feel uncomplicated on paper. In situations of disagreement, the important thing is to keep pushing forward towards resilience—albeit, in the future, I would try harder to achieve this goal without resorting to manipulation tactics—because, as we experienced in the first round of the game, the worst result is one where nothing is achieved. Therefore, I am thankful for the opportunity to play the FRC game, as it has taught me skills that I can apply in various contexts outside of water governance.
References
Brisbois, M. C., & de Loë, R. C. (2016). Power in Collaborative Approaches to Governance for Water: A Systematic Review. Society & Natural Resources, 29(7), 775–790. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2015.1080339
Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T., & Balogh, S. (2012). An Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mur01
The Flood Resilience Challenge (FRC) game was designed to allow players to develop their communication skills while learning about risk management in water governance. In this sense, it is a serious game that encourages players to uphold their stakeholders' values in advocating for specific flood management plans. Hence, I expected that the simulative experience of the FRC game would teach me about the 'ebbs and flows' of collaborative governance. Nonetheless, participating in this game taught me that collaborative management is often disjointed, especially when it involves various stakeholders with differing influences. Ultimately, the 'ebbs and flows' I believed I would witness were absent; thus, my romantic expectations around collaborative governance were challenged.
How power dynamics nullify mutual interests as a point of leverage
I based my original expectations for the FRC game on elements of Emmerson et al.'s (2012) "Logical Model Approach to Collaborative Governance" (p. 7). Specifically, I decided to focus on the "shared motivations" (p. 7) section of this model as I believe—or, rather, believed—that collaboration would be simple if a group of stakeholders could agree on a mutually beneficial commitment and trust one another's capacities to contribute towards achieving that goal. Hence, before the game commenced, I created an extensive document outlining my stakeholder's values, all other stakeholders with the same values, and, therefore, the flood management plans that would benefit all parties. However, this resource was null. I did not account for the fact that my stakeholder, the president of the mobile home area, had little power compared to larger stakeholders, like the politicians. This power dynamic made it challenging to be taken seriously—even among the lower-influence stakeholders with my shared values—during the negotiation periods. Therefore, while I could advocate for implementing my flood management plans, I was perpetually at the 'charity' of the more influential stakeholders.
Finding alternative methods to exercise discurisve power
Nonetheless, Brisbois (2016) outlines that power dynamics have a fundamental and constant influence on the outcome of collaborative approaches to water governance; thus, my feeling of disadvantage as a lower-influence stakeholder was common. In fact, through participating in the game, I experienced all three of Brisbois' (2016) dimensions of power—which, again, was through the guise of a stakeholder being subject to others' control. First, I observed instrumental power. This dimension was the most overt. As a stakeholder with five 'dollars,' I did not have the financial resources of most of the other stakeholders; thus, I could not provide the (unfortunately) necessary incentives to help support my flood management plans. Next, I experienced the importance of structural power. The politicians, most notably the mayor, had complete control over which strategies would be approved. This division of decision-making powers meant that I had to frame all of my flood management plans in a manner that would appeal to their political agenda. Finally, I witnessed—and eventually exercised—discursive power. Concerning the previous dimension, I would craft my phrasing to exploit emotions and manipulate politicians into conforming to my more self-serving plans, like wet-proofing my home. I participated in this dimension of power more near the end of the game as I struggled to make alliances and was bankrupt after a mass flooding event; hence, I abandoned the moral high ground I began with out of desperation. Overall, I attribute my surprise about the presence of power dynamics in the FRC game to my sole focus on Emmerson et al.'s (2012) "shared motivations" (p. 7) section. A more holistic understanding of this model would have helped me recognize that power is deeply embedded in the "systems context" (p. 7) level—or the very foundations of collaborative governance.
Imperfect decisions vs inaction
Ultimately, I found the FRC game to be a frustrating but insightful experience of collaborative governance. It taught me that, in the real world, stakeholders have intersecting motivations that complicate their willingness to agree on decisions, even when these decisions feel uncomplicated on paper. In situations of disagreement, the important thing is to keep pushing forward towards resilience—albeit, in the future, I would try harder to achieve this goal without resorting to manipulation tactics—because, as we experienced in the first round of the game, the worst result is one where nothing is achieved. Therefore, I am thankful for the opportunity to play the FRC game, as it has taught me skills that I can apply in various contexts outside of water governance.
References
Brisbois, M. C., & de Loë, R. C. (2016). Power in Collaborative Approaches to Governance for Water: A Systematic Review. Society & Natural Resources, 29(7), 775–790. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2015.1080339
Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T., & Balogh, S. (2012). An Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 22(1), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mur01
