Resources
- Presentation: “Leveling Up” on Serious Games to Improve Awareness, Engagement & Collaboration (PDF)
- Featured Game: Flood Fighter: Nevada
- USACE Applied Learning Environments (ALEs) website
- USACE Collaborration and Public Participation Center of Expertise website
Learn how “serious games” can help bring creativity, strategic thinking and collaborative teamwork to support problem solving around real-world issues with serious stakes, like drought and flood risk reduction or ecosystem restoration.
Collaboration expert and gaming guru Hunter Merritt, USACE, shared insights on how gaming approaches can support community and partner engagement for public lands and resource management. The 90-minute webinar included a presentation, Q&A, and game demo of Flood Fighter Nevada.
Featured partnership practices included:
- Laying the foundation for collaboration: joint fact-finding, building a common vocabulary, creating a shared vision, facilitation.
- Entrepreneurship and risk management: using creative and applied scenarios to help communities and interested parties explore issues, risks, and potential alternatives
- Proactive communication and public engagement: providing credible and locally-relevant information to build understanding of the issues and trade-offs
Presenter:
Hunter Merritt, USACE, Social Scientist, Collaboration and Public Participation Center of Expertise, Institute for Water Resources
Facilitated by the Partnership and Community Collaboration Academy
Anne Desmarais, Director
Jane Hanson, Assistant Director
Managing by Network: Spotlight Series
Broaden your awareness of opportunities for partnership and community collaboration.
The Academy's Spotlight Series features federal programs and initiatives that highlight innovative ideas and partnerships. Webinars are led by Guest Speakers from the Academy.
Who Should Attend? Spotlight Series webinars are open to all employees and partner representatives of federal agencies.
Tuition: There is no cost for Spotlight Series webinars.
Subscribe here and select "Spotlight Series" to hear about upcoming presentations.
Spotlight Series Recordings
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Building a Partnership Network for Affordable Housing
Learn how BLM and partnering agencies renewed their partnership network, as they updated the guidance for potential land transfers (sales) to support affordable housing projects throughout Nevada. This work is made possible through the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998...
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Guiding Principles for Partnership from the National Sea Grant College Program
For more than 50 years, NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program has provided research and outreach to help build and grow innovative businesses along America's oceans and Great Lakes, protect against environmental destruction and natural disasters, and train the next generation of...
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Community Engagement and Collaboration for Exhibit Planning
Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts is working with its communities to co-create a new exhibition in the Patrick J. Mogan Cultural Center, which will replace the existing exhibit about immigration and more completely tell the stories of cultural changes in the city. “Lowell is a...
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Transforming Conflict and Fostering Collaborative Action: ROGER
ROGER (Results-Oriented Grazing for Ecological Resilience) is a unique collaborative effort in Nevada’s sagebrush steppe. This rancher-led group is working with federal, state, local, and tribal stakeholders to define new approaches to public lands management that better achieve goals for livestock...
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Improving Communities through a Collaborative Vision and Conservation Financing: The Baileys Trail System, Dawn McCarthy, USFS
Dawn McCarthy, PhD, US Forest Service Seth Brown, Quantified Ventures This webinar will share insights into a Pay for Success model program, which will determine how impact investing can be used to fund recreational infrastructure on public land. The Baileys Trail System in Wayne...
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Fishers and Farmers: Watershed Leaders Network, Heidi Keuler, USFWS
Change only happens at the speed of earned trust. How do diverse stakeholders move from finger pointing to collaboration? How can you share your agency’s expertise and also show respect for local knowledge? In the Upper Mississippi River Basin, farmers are taking the lead to improve water...
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Moving Back to the People: Understanding Asset Based Community Development, John Titre, USFS
How do you unlock community talents to better address a community’s current and future needs? How can you support decision making for “wicked problems” that are mired in controversy, polarity, and argument? How do you connect your agency’s mission to community needs like rural jobs, youth...
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Partnering With Private Landowners, Jess Jackson, USDA NRCS
How do you build partnerships on working landscapes? Do you have a project that might benefit from working with NRCS? How can you collaborate with landowners to meet your goals? The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is a federal agency that works hand-in-hand with the American...
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Historic Route 66 Corridor Management Plan, Doran Sanchez, BLM
Join us for a visually rich tour of the Mother Road, with Doran Sanchez, Partnership Outreach & Development Specialist, BLM California Desert District, Barstow Field Office. Hear how the Historic Route 66 Corridor Management Plan in California is helping to preserve and celebrate the nation’s...
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Getting Seniors Outdoors, Randy Thoreson, NPS
Getting Seniors Outdoors invites you to think about multigenerational connections to public lands. How can you integrate seniors into your community planning, health initiatives, and organizational outreach efforts? What experiences appeal to seniors? What can we learn from both our Guest Speaker...