Vol. 17 No. 2 (2026)
Special Issue: SI_TGEO

Stop Disasters Game as a Tool for Teaching Resilience within Geography Education in Uncertain Times

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Emmanuel Eze
Institute for Didactics of Geography, University of Münster, Heisenbergstraße 2, 48149, Münster, Germany
Rainer Mehren
Institute for Didactics of Geography, University of Münster, Heisenbergstraße 2, 48149, Münster, Germany
DOI: https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.e.eze.17.2.221.240
Categories

Published 2026-06-06

Keywords

  • geography education,
  • serious games,
  • resilience,
  • digital pedagogy,
  • powerful knowledge,
  • pre-service teachers
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Eze, Emmanuel, and Rainer Mehren. 2026. “Stop Disasters Game As a Tool for Teaching Resilience Within Geography Education in Uncertain Times”. European Journal of Geography 17 (2):S.221-S.240. https://doi.org/10.48088/ejg.e.eze.17.2.221.240.

Copyright (c) 2026 Emmanuel Eze, Rainer Mehren

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Received 2025-12-24
Accepted 2026-05-31
Published 2026-06-06

Abstract

As climate extremes intensify and disaster risks escalate, geography education faces critical imperatives to equip students with capacities for navigating uncertainty. This study examines the pedagogical potential and limitations of digital serious games for teaching disaster risk reduction, focusing on preservice geography teachers' perceptions of the Stop Disasters game, a browser-based simulation developed by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Employing an exploratory mixed-methods design, the study analysed game experience reports from preservice geography teachers in Germany who engaged with five hazard scenarios (tsunami, hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, flood). The study involved 14 preservice teachers (n = 14). Quantitative findings indicate moderate to high engagement (M = 3.79) and strong recognition of the game's value for teaching preparedness concepts (M = 4.00). However, participants expressed substantial concerns regarding realism (M = 2.57), capacity to challenge assumptions (M = 2.36), and relevance to regional contexts (M = 2.43). Qualitative thematic analysis identified four key dimensions: learning outcomes emphasising preparedness imperatives but limited hazard mechanism understanding; pedagogical affordances including experiential engagement and systems thinking opportunities; implementation challenges encompassing oversimplification, technology barriers, and curriculum constraints; and recommendations for enhanced realism, instructional scaffolding, and contextual adaptation. Findings position serious games as valuable adjunct tools within broader pedagogical approaches rather than comprehensive solutions, and they require substantial scaffolding to support powerful geographical knowledge development. The study contributes to digitalisation debates in geography education by empirically demonstrating how preservice teachers critically evaluate educational technologies against standards of powerful knowledge necessary for teaching resilience in uncertain times.

Highlights:

  • Preservice teachers view the Stop Disasters game as engaging but epistemically limited.
  • Stop Disasters teaches preparedness but lacks depth in geographical thinking.
  • Stop Disasters’ low realism ratings highlight epistemic problems of oversimplification.
  • Effective game use for powerful geographical knowledge depends on teacher scaffolding and guided reflection.
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