The 8•16•40 Crisis - Designing Sustainability Games case study

Getting our Māori and Pasifika rangatahi engaged in STEM is critical

To solve the 8•16•40 Crisis, we need to ensure that Māori and Pasifika students can see themselves in STEM. 

STEM careers aren’t just about lab coats or coding — they’re also about solving real-world problems. From tackling climate change to designing resilient communities, engineers and technologists play a vital role in shaping Aotearoa NZ’s future.

With a growing STEM talent shortage, we need to take on these critical challenges.

That’s why projects like Te Waihangu Kēmu Toitūtanga – Designing Sustainability Games (outlined below) are so important.

This project, led by the Institution of Civil Engineers in partnership with Te Kura Kaupapa Māori ā Rohe ō Māngere, used game design as a powerful tool to engage rangatahi with sustainability and engineering solutions. By making climate action interactive, students were innovating as well as learning.

If we want to inspire the next generation of problem solvers, we need to meet them where they are. Gamification, hands-on learning and industry engagement are key to strengthening the STEM pipeline and ensuring we have the talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges.

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Te Waihanga Kēmu Toitūtanga – Designing Sustainability Games

The climate crisis is a big issue facing our communities. As engineers and technologists are at the forefront of tackling climate change, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) launched a pilot project to show rangatahi what engineers can do and inspire climate action in the community. To achieve this, they used an innovative approach of “gamifying” sustainability education. 

ICE teamed up with Te Kura Kaupapa Māori ā Rohe ō Māngere (TKKM ō Māngere) to lead rangatahi on a guided enquiry on climate and sustainability issues that saw them designing their own educational board games to teach others about climate action.

Supported by engineers and researchers from the University of Auckland, students explored a wide range of climate issues and solutions. They used these learnings to design a game raising awareness of flooding risks and impacts on community. To provide a local context, they cheekily called their game "Floodopoly".

This game design process empowered rangatahi to create their own ecosystem to develop problems and envision various solutions. The use of game play enhanced the engagement with content learning and highlighted the students’ skills in creative problem-solving and storytelling.

This project was a fantastic learning opportunity for ICE, as they now look to create more engineering-related educational modules for schools. Their experience working with TKKM ō Māngere highlighted the importance of role models helping to break down complex scientific concepts and making them more relatable to students.

"Working with the industry partners is pretty good. You learn a lot of things. Sometimes I’m always in the middle of understanding and not really there until I actually do more hands-on stuff." Tushay Takimoana, Year 11 student TKKM ō Māngere