Climate Crisis - Transition and 'FLOOD!: An immersive, collaborative and scaleable experience and co-production programme building on Space Plague'

Climate Crisis - Transition funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering INGENIOUS Follow-on-Funding Award and 'Climate Crisis - FLOOD!: An immersive, collaborative and scaleable experience and co-production programme building on Space Plague' is an inclusive immersive experience design and production programme for positive social transformation, driven by STFC Science in Big Data and Scientific Computing related weather tracking and predication, and flood hazard projection and prevention.
The project aims to empower young people & families from communities underserved by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and Arts informal education and underrepresented in STEM & Arts education and careers to consider STFC science and engineering as accessible and 'for them', develop general science and engineering literacy, explore what responsible citizenship is and to build agency, confidence and ability to take creative action and assume leadership in tackling the climate crisis. The co-design/co-production approach ensures that a significant portion of 'audiences' will act as active creators with full agency in the design, development and implementation of the productions. All audience participants contribute to ongoing feedback and refinement of the main adventure and participate in a reflective, creative collective response to the themes and content they explore during the adventure.

The project events will use the concept of a LiiVE Adventure (Live Interactive Immersive Virtual/physical Environment), developed and successfully tested through 'Space Plague' and 'Climate Crisis - WILDFIRE!' The concept frames real science & engineering in a compelling immersive hyperlocal story game with live in character problem solving & complex decision-making by public participants. It is constructed as a mix of immersive theatre, escape room mechanisms, simulation environments, scenario-based learning, live action role playing & collaborative gaming.
Climate Crisis - FLOOD! will be Co-designed and Co-produced ‘in the community, with the community, by the community’, with community partners (from inner city and outer borough London), young local creative and emerging Public Engagement professionals, Middlesex University students and staff, specialists and STFC area science experts working together from initiation of the programme to create a resonant, representative and meaningful experience, following the processes developed and deployed with great success in the previous projects. A key focus will be development of FLOOD! ‘in the community, with the community, by the community’.
The programme builds on learnings and experiences from our prior 'Space Plague' Nucleus Award and 'Climate Crisis - WILDFIRE!' Royal Academy of Engineering and British Science Association/UK Science Festivals Network 'Making Connections' funded project 2021-23.