Ogallala: A New Educational Geoscience Game Designed to Teach Groundwater Resource Management in Agriculture

It is essential that all citizens understand where our water comes from and how we use our limited groundwater resources so that we might efficiently and sustainably manage them. This is especially true in the western half of Kansas in the United States, which is reliant on groundwater from the Ogallala aquifer as a primary source of freshwater. To better support educators across the state, we developed an original educational game, Ogallala, as a supplement to Kansan school curricula to encourage enhanced public literacy in groundwater resource management and possible geoscience careers. The game is designed to teach seconday school level students about aquifers, agriculture, and collaborative groundwater management within their community. Players assume the role of farmers who respond to fluctuating economic and precipitation conditions that influence both their income and the availability of water in the aquifer. Players win by running the most lucrative farm without depleting the aquifer. The game has several learning objectives: (a) define the concept of a shared, depletable resource, also known as a common pool resource, (b) recognize how relative water consumption and profit differ between common crop and animal stocks, (c) describe the impact of technology in sustainable water use, and (d) practice inter-player cooperative action in resource management. These learning goals align with ESS2 ("Earth's Systems") and ESS3 ("Earth and Human Activity") of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that the Kansas Department of Education has adopted.  

Playtesting and player feedback has demonstrated that Ogallala is both educational and enjoyable, with participants often taking the initiative to replay the game to improve their previous scores and exhibiting an improved understanding of groundwater’s role in Kansas agriculture. The next steps of this project are to evaluate the effectiveness of the game in secondary schools within the state of Kansas. The study involves participating educators to integrate the Kansas Geological Survey's "Aquifers of Kansas" instructional package (consisting of videos, worksheets, and activities focused on groundwater quantity and management) into their ESS2 and ESS3-focused curricula. The project team will then join the schools for gameplay sessions. Participating students will be quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated on their understanding of groundwater concepts both before and after gameplay. This presentation will highlight the results from ten schools that are participating in this project between November 2025 - February 2026. Evaluating Ogallala  will not only expand on current studies exploring how we can better communicate geoscience, but it will also provide insight into the potential of game learning as an educational mechanism––a venture that transcends disciplines and communities.