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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2308</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>How playing and debriefing/reflecting on two escape games influenced students&amp;rsquo; perceptions on local climate governance and democracy</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Simon</surname>
<given-names>Marine</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1713-1168</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Budke</surname>
<given-names>Alexandra</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute for Geography Education, University of Cologne, Cologne, 50931, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>04</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>34</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Marine Simon</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2308/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2308/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2308/egusphere-2026-2308.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2308/egusphere-2026-2308.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Climate change presents major challenges for cities and requires local decision-making processes involving diverse stakeholders. At the same time, research shows that secondary students often hold misconceptions about climate-related measures, and that there is sometimes reduced support for democratic principles. Innovative educational approaches are therefore needed to foster students&amp;rsquo; knowledge and engagement with local climate policy. Although gamification is considered as a promising strategy in climate education, little is known about how escape games supported by a debriefing/reflection phase can support learning about local climate governance and democratic processes. This study presents two educational escape games addressing local climate policy solutions, stakeholder perspectives, and urban decision-making. A pre- and post-test control group design was implemented with 172 secondary students (aged 14&amp;ndash;20) from Germany, Italy, and Spain. All students played one of the games; the experimental group participated in a structured debriefing/reflection phase, while the control group did not. We analysed changes in students&amp;rsquo; perceptions of local political stakeholders and their opinions on democratic decision-making at the city level. Results indicate that playing the escape games led to students&amp;rsquo; better understanding of stakeholders, of their own role, and of governance processes in the context of addressing climate change-related issues. However, students who engaged in the debriefing demonstrated more differentiated perceptions. Students expressed mostly support for democratic processes; however, after playing without debriefing/reflecting, some students did significantly less support democratic decision-making, whereas students who debriefed/reflected the games did not. The findings underline the crucial role of structured debriefing/reflection in transforming an escape game experience into political and democratic learning.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="34"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>European Commission</funding-source>
<award-id>KA220-SCH-D224FD32</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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<back>
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</article>