32 Climate Change and Extreme Heat in the Rocky Mountain Southwest: Impacts, Adaptation, and Geoscience Perspectives
This session explores climate change and extreme heat in the Rocky Mountain Southwest, emphasizing geoscience research, education, and community-based adaptation strategies. We welcome scientists, policy experts, educators, and planners addressing regional climate resilience.
Tuesday, 19 May 2026
1:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Alvarado F
Playing for Tomorrow: Building Community Resilience and Sustainable Water Futures in Cozy River Valley Game
Paper number: 32-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:55 PM – 3:15 PM
Authors
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Amy Smith MuiseNew Mexico State University - Learning Games Lab, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Abstract
Game-based simulations can help communities understand complex environmental issues, such as water scarcity, climate variability and the challenges of sustainable agriculture. Cozy River Valley (2025) offers players a chance to make decisions about water resources, based on real data and climate projections. Players in a fictional arid agricultural valley balance crop production, environmental care, community needs, and economic sustainability. By experiencing immediate and long-term impacts of their water-use choices, amid changing climate conditions, players learn the importance of systems thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and adaptive decision-making. The project illustrates how playful environments can promote learning, experimentation and shared imagination about sustainable futures. We’ll explore how developers can leverage actual data to guide backend development. In this case, the data-informed approach enables players to analyze present and upcoming real-world situations influenced by climate change, water shortages, shifts in agriculture, and ecosystem threats impacting communities and economies. Games like Cozy River Valley serve as participatory media that allow players to explore uncertainty, test collaborative approaches and foster resilience in response to environmental changes. These types of games provide developers a way to integrate empirical data into a gameplay experience while maintaining the elegance of game design. They are a participatory medium that brings students and researchers into the experience, to work together to convey complex findings to game players.
Created by New Mexico State University's Learning Games Lab, the game emerged from interdisciplinary collaboration among extension educators, water resource researchers and media developers. It was developed to help agricultural producers, students and community members understand how water decisions influence environmental sustainability, community relationships and economic outcomes. The game models sixty years of anticipated climate change, with a backend informed by actual agricultural data, modified for fictional crops and conditions. The data was collected and interpreted collaboratively with graduate students studying hydrology, agronomy, and related topics, whose participation was funded by fellowships from the Secure Water Futures project. Extension-based games often serve educational outreach goals, helping communities translate research insights into practical strategies.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 4
doi: 10.1130/abs/2026RM-410731
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