Integration and Promotion: Integrating Sustainability Research into Computer Science Teaching through Serious Games Assignments

This report describes a two-year partnership at Nottingham Trent University, UK, in which final-year undergraduate Computing and Computer Science (Games Technology) students built serious games addressing sustainability research. The module, "Serious Games," is an optional 20-credit course, and the collaboration with Green Academy, the university's sustainability-focused strategic team, introduced client briefs that paired industry skills with sustainability literacy. Students drew on university research projects in areas such as climate communication, Arctic carbon cycling, chalk stream ecology, and local climate policy, and were asked to align their designs with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and UNESCO education for sustainable development competencies. The authors position the model as pioneering within higher education for embedding sustainability in computing and game design teaching.

The first cohort, comprising 27 students split into two groups, experienced uneven outcomes, with students responding poorly to a less structured second term, coding pressures causing crunch-style production, and confusion over a dual-brief assessment structure. The second cohort, a merged group of 21 students, benefited from more rigorous planning, earlier Unity tutorials, clearer formative feedback procedures, and a playtesting day attended by nearly 70 first-year students. Assessment data from the second year showed comparable performance between Games Technology students (mean 74%) and Computing students (mean 76%), with a Mann-Whitney U test indicating no significant difference, though the authors plan continued monitoring.

Reported outcomes included several prototypes adopted by Green Academy for training and events, such as a resource-management game linked to chalk stream conservation, a city-planning puzzle, and an intergenerational energy game. The authors also identify ongoing refinements, including replacing the written report with a presentation and brochure, adding peer roundtable sessions, and co-designing future briefs with a local special educational needs group.