The Ecojam is a collaborative game jam bringing together a group of ecosystems scientists with game designers to develop new games based on the concept of Ecosystem Services. Ecosystem Services are things like clean air, clean water, healthy food and timber; benefits to human beings that are provided for us by nature. One challenge for scientists, especially ecological economists and systems modellers, is to understand the value that people place on these services.

In 2013, Professor Robert Costanza gathered a group of scientists for workshops in the USA and Australia to explore whether digital games could help reveal those values. The result of the two workshops was the decision to run this game jam, creating a series of new games to test out the possibilities. In 2014, I co-organized and co-facilitated the Ecojam together with David Finnigan and Ida Kubiszewski. We invited scientists and game makers from all over the world to meet in Santa Barbara and collaborate.

Photographs and video footage courtesy of Izzy Gramp.

Participants

• Sharolyn Anderson
• Brian Chung
• Robert Costanza
• David Finnigan
• Izzy Gramp
• Alan Hazelden
• Ida Kubiszewski
• GJ Lee
• Harry Lee
• Michel McBride-Charpentier
• Ben Norskov
• Fernando Ramallo
• Ian Snyder
• Paul Sutton
• Rick Ziegler

Special thanks to the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis for hosting us.