I’m not the sort of person who starts a project by doing loads of preparation and extensive planning. My neurodivergent brain much prefers to dive right in, try things out, and figure out what works along the way. I think this is quite common with ADHDers, making us well suited to things that require flexibility and rapid ingenuity but less suited to strategic thinking. It is a double edged sword for an academic. On the one-hand, the heuristic mindset and approach is a blessing for experimenting but can often leave you lacking the theoretical framework in which to place and define your work.
My science communication journey started in 2015 at the first Hull Science Festival. Back then I was running a hacked version of my model of the Humber Estuary that allowed people to change sea level in it. It was the idea of my then boss, Prof Tom Coulthard but it was my job to make and demonstrate it. In the 10+ years since, I have gained a lot of experience in science and environmental communication, trying out lots of ideas and exploring a shed load more. Surely, there’s plenty of knowledge stored in my head that would be useful to share with others?
This was my challenge when I was asked to give a two hour session on Environmental Communication to the Geography students at York St John University (see last month’s Imagination Engine to read more about my Visiting Fellowship there). The students will be undertaking research projects in Slovenia and as part of their coursework they will be creating communication materials to share that research, including posters, short-form videos, and social media posts. My session was to prepare them for this.
Lake Bled, Slovenia, just because it is pretty.
What I really appreciated from this experience was that it finally got me to sit down and pull my experiences together into a single narrative – a story told through powerpoint. The question I asked myself was ‘what is it that I do when I design an exhibit? What am I trying to achieve when I put a video together? I compiled together my building blocks for effective environmental communications:
Aim for impact – your communications want to change something, what is it, and how does it work towards it?
Embrace a behavioural model for change – work with the way people’s brains work, learn from psychologists.
Avoid robbing people of agency – empower people, don’t drown them in doom and gloom.
Emphasise positive actions – show examples of others doing good work so they won’t feel like Billy no mates.
Structure an engaging narrative – tell a story, don’t give a scientific report.
Share the ‘Hero’s Journey’ – all good stories have a hero who changes and grows, who it is?
Make it resonate with your audience – make your message relevant to the things your audience cares about.
When I reflect on the building blocks I shared, it was apparent that my approach is still that of a practitioner – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I find ideas and I apply them. It is still my ambition to put my work into relevant theoretical frameworks and critically reflect on the literature in the many fields I have drawn from, including psychology, museology, gaming, and scenography. Maybe one day I will study a Master’s degree in science communication to force me to do it!
If you’d like to learn more about my building blocks of environmental communication then Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I plan to turn the session into a series of resources that I will post there, possibly in the second half of 2025.
This article originally appeared in the April issue of Imagination Engines. To get my content earlier and sent directly to your email, subscribe using the box below.
I have a whole bunch of new papers recently published to tell you about. I can’t take (all) the credit though as they have been led by amazing colleagues. Huge shout out especially to Josh Wolstenholme who has been working hard to publish various bits of his PhD research.
The first paper in this update led by Josh covers the modelling work performed for his PhD. He used an enhancement of CAESAR-Lisflood I wrote that allows users to represent leaky woody dames in the model, including those with flow gaps underneath. This provides an ideal tool to simulate the long-term changes natural flood management can cause in rivers. Josh’s research demonstrates the feasibility of this including verification against field observations.
This is the second paper Josh has produced from his PhD research, currently under review but you can access the pre-print. Whilst the paper above covers his modelling work, this one covers his fieldwork. This includes some enjoyable, yet very cold, trips to Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire, and the installation of trail cams. The field work observed changes to the river before and after natural flood management interventions had been undertaken.
I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this paper out! Five years ago this was going to my big paper, the one with significant findings rather than some niche model sensitivity tests. But every time I made progress something in the model popped up to frustrate me. After I left Hull in 2021 I let it sit. Last year, Josh picked it up again and brought fresh eyes and energy to it. He has done a brilliant job and made it his own.
The way we assess flood risk assumes rivers do not change shape during floods. In the majority of cases this is a reasonable assumption, however, the modelling work here shows that it is not always the case. Large amounts of sediment can be transported downstream and deposited, increasing flood inundations and volumes during later stages of the same event.
This paper, led by Katie Parsons, describes the work we did co-creating educational materials to support the Help Callum and Help Sali 360 videos. The videos came about when I worked with Alison Lloyd-Williams to use my immersive storytelling research to tell the real-life stories of flood-affected children that were shared through Alison’s research. Katie brought her education expertise to work with children, young people, and teachers to create resources to use the videos in the classroom.
I have been so privileged to get to collaborate with amazing and wonderful researchers like Josh and Katie. It’s also great to see them work together on the HedgeHunter’s project too. I had nothing to do with this but it is really cool work:
Back in 2020, just before the lockdown, Katie took part in my NERC-funded Earth Arcade Academy project with a project called INSECURE and it grew massively since (nothing to do with me!). Katie used creative methods to foster intergenerational engagement in communities at risk of coastal erosion. Even though my contribution was tiny and remote, it is such a great project I am going to pretend I had a small hand in it!:
Both Josh and Katie are now at Loughborough University and working on new projects together. I cannot wait to see what they will produce.
This article was originally posted in the Imagination Engines newsletter. To receive this content in your email weeks earlier, subscribe using the box below.
Easter is probably my favourite, and busiest, time of year. In recent years it has been filled with lots of gaming activities that I just love. 2025 has been no different.
Obviously, the European Geoscience Union General Assembly (EGU) in Vienna looms large over Easter. It is often the highlight of the year for me. I’ve attending it for fifteen years now and Vienna feels like a home from home. This year I had the great and rare joy of representing my employer at the meeting, something I had been advocating for and immensely valued and appreciated. In addition, I still got the opportunity to do my usual bits for the (unofficial) Geoscience Games Day.
Double chin warning!
In 2025, my activities included:
Two presentations for my day job work, plus lots of networking and learning about the latest science from the hydrology and flood worlds.
Hosting the Games for Geoscience oral session and the Geoscience Games Night.
Running a short course based on Adventures in Model Land whilst ‘presenting’ a poster on it at the same time.
Hosting a pop-up networking event for neurodivergent attendees of the meeting.
I also got the chance to attend the second Play for the Planet network meeting, which was much closer to home.
You can read all about these things, and more, in the newsletter below. Subscribe to get future issues sent straight to your email.
Celebrating the EGU Games Day: A Look Back
April 30th 2025 was officially the eight edition of the (unofficial) European Geoscience Union Games Day! Where does the time go, eh? In this post I take a look back at the origins of the Games Day and the story so far.
For the uninitiated, the General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union, often just referred to as EGU, is Europe’s largest gathering of geoscientists. Each year, around 21,000 of them converge in Vienna to share science and schnitzel. For the last seven years, Wednesdays have been what I have dubbed the Games Day, featuring our science sharing session – Games for Geoscience – and our social event – the Geoscience Games Night.
It all began when Sam Illingworth and Rolf Hut approached me in 2017 about convening a gaming session as part of the education and outreach programme. The following year we held the first ever Games for Geoscience session, thankfully with enough abstracts for both a session of talks and a session of posters.
Rolf and Sam at EGU 2019, amazingly not deliberately cosplaying as two generations of the Dr.
We also held a Games Night. The first one being in a small room in the basement. I remember forking our around £500 from my research funds to purchase 80 bottles of beer and a few crisps for the players. The room and the beer were nowhere near sufficient for the event. Since then we have had very generous support from the EGU team, with the Games Night taking place in a much larger space with access to the free refreshments in the neighbouring poster halls (although security guards added an additional difficulty level to this in 2025!).
It also started the tradition of my awful promotional images for social media. I’m no artist and my design skills are minimal. I also have no budget for this (but apparently I did for beer…) and have a determination to do things myself. Each year I have made some form of crappy image in PowerPoint to drive abstract submissions and make people aware of the Games Night.
In 2019, were joined by Dungeon Master Liz Lewis and Volcano Explorer Jaz Scarlett. We even expanded over the pond, with Rolf heading up a Games for Geoscience session at the American Geophysical Union meeting, with quest speaker Isaac Kerlow, created of the EarthGirl games.
The Covid-19 lockdowns forced EGU online in 2020 and 2021 and the organisers did a phenomenal job in pulling together the meeting during this time. I hosted Games for Geoscience from my bedroom, whilst the 2020 Games Night saw the convenor team live stream a game of Monster Flux – not geoscience-themed but needs must! In 2021, the Games Night took to Gather Town where I hosted a pub quiz in a bespoke games room I designed. The convenor team changed, as we said goodbye to Sam and Jaz, and welcomed in Lisa Gallagher and Malena Orduna Allegria.
The meeting in 2022 was fully hybrid, with onsite and online connection. The Games Night returned to a physical setting and we tried a return of the Games Room hosted event. Sadly, there was not much demand for it and since the Games Night has remained an onsite only event.
I was so happy to be offered the chance to attend EGU in person again in 2024, my first time in five years, and host the Games for Geoscience session and the Geoscience Games Night live. I was back again this year too and the whole Games Day just keeps going from strength to strength. I think this year was our busiest ever Geoscience Games Night. It is an event that relies of organised chaos and I am worried we may be reaching the limits of that working successfully – we may need to adapt to expand. For now, watch this space!
Creating Game Worlds from Models: Adventures in Model Land
Model Land is a concept proposed and explored by Professor Erica Thompson in her monograph Escape from Model Land. The idea will be well-known to those of us who use numerical models:
Models are built to simulate real world systems but to be useful they have to simplify the sheer complexity of nature. The way those simplifications are made is determined by the requirements, knowledge, experience, and biases of the model builder. Consequently, what these models simulate is not the real world but a world of its own making, a model land.
Erica implored us to get out of model land – to understand how the simplifications of the models make them wrong and use them carefully when they are informing real world decisions. This is absolutely vital, especially in my professional area where models are used to help us make decisions on flood risk. The key word in that last sentence is ‘help’ as models should never be making decisions for us otherwise, as Erica would likely say, that decision is made in model land and not the real world.
But when I hear the term model land, I have additional questions: what does a model land look like? What would it be like to explore one? How would life survive in one and could people call it home? These are probably not the most important questions for a modeller or decision-maker but wouldn’t it be fun?!
If games are ‘operas made out of bridges‘, models are simply bridges made out of bridges, or at best are very low quality operas. A game is a model of a system (sometimes often built using multiple models itself) – the bridge bit – that uses story and art to immerse players within it and bring it to life – the opera bit. Consequently, game worlds are themselves model lands. When you step into Link’s shoes and explore Hyrule in any game of the Zelda series, you are actually exploring a simplified representation of Hyrule, optimised for the purpose of the game and the hardware available. You are entering a model land.
What separates the model lands created by numerical models and game worlds is that paucity of opera. That’s all.
And we can fix that by using the Adventures in Model Land system and our imaginations.
Adventures in Model Land has been created by myself, Erica, Liz Lewis, Sam Illingworth, Rolf Hut, and Jess Enright as an open-source resource for numerical modellers. The latest version, v0.2, still in the beta stage, provides a step-by-step guide for the ‘operafication’ of any numerical model to create an explorable model land/game world. It leans heavily on the world-building methods of tabletop roleplay games (TTRPG) and the intention is to allow modellers to lead players on quests within their model lands.
Summary of the Adventures in Model Land system.
At EGU this year, I led a short course using the v0.2 of Adventures in Model Land, leading over thirty participants through the worlding process, creating model lands and writing postcards describing their experiences. It was a great opportunity to test the idea out, gather some feedback, and further refine the system. We even had people designing new games based on the model lands they had brought to life! I think there is great potential in using the system as a workshop with modelling groups and the users of models to help them better understand the models used to make decisions – something I am working towards.
You can download the system for free and use it whatever you like. However, we would really appreciate feedback on the system and how you have used it. Please do also share your model lands and the games you create, our plan is to produce a compendium of our favourites in the future. I plan to release an update to the system later this year as a v1 – subscribe to this newsletter to keep up to date with progress and new releases.
Neurodiversity at EGU
I am a big fan of social media. Probably too much so. I am not so great at in person networking but I feel I have successfully made use of social media to plug this gap. Not only does it connect me with people working on things I am interested in, it also allows me to learn a bit about them and that means when I meet them in person it is much easier to start that conversation.
It is also a catalyst for ideas and starting things – something I apparently have a knack for. In the run up to EGU this year, I saw a post by Simon Clark, EGU’s Projects Manager, who was asking if anyone knew of a STEM-focussed network for neurodivergent folk. I reflected that I would be interested too but did not know of any. However, I also reflected that EGU has an active and effective EDI committee, so if any STEM-focussed organisation should be hosting an network for neurodivergent folk, EGU is a great candidate.
Simon and I exchanged a few messages and agreed to host an informal networking event at the conference to try and bring together others who might be interested in a network. We held this on the Wednesday morning and it really was a positive experience. Having attended the General Assembly for 15 years now, it was just nice to connect with people who struggle with the same things and remind yourself you are not broken and you are not alone. Simon put it best on BlueSky after the event when he said it “filled my heart”.
Some of the attendees at the pop up event.
Alongside the pop-up event we also put out a survey simply asking people what does and what does not work well for them at the General Assembly, along with a chance to register their interest in being part of the network. This will be open until end of May 2025 and you can complete it here.
Encouragingly, we were not the only ones to have this idea. Lucile Turc and Ana Bastos (who recently wrote about her experiences of ADHD and science in an article for Nature), was part of a group organising an neurodivergent scientists picnic. I was enjoying an apple strudel at gate D35 of Vienna airport at the time, sadly, so could not attend.
The next steps will be contacting those who registered their interest, and pooling the learning from the two events and the survey to compile a report for the conference organisers and the EDI committee. I’m really excited about the supportive community we can build together.
Exploring Games for Environmental Solutions at Play for the Planet 2
In April I had the opportunity to attend and present at the second Play for the Planet network meeting in York. It brings together people of different backgrounds who all use games to address environmental issues. Firmly within my interests and the remit of my work with Games for Geoscience, I attended the inaugural event in 2024 and jumped at the chance to attend again.
In the build up to the event, the venue was moved from the main University of York campus to their King’s Manor location in the city centre. It left me reflecting how ridiculously fortunate I am to have an environmental games conference held within a ten minute walk of my house! A big change from the bus-train-bus trek I had to make (and self-fund) from North Lincolnshire last year. In 2024, I did not really have much to share so I presented on my thoughts about the relationship between models and games.
The presentations this year were in the form of research blast talks – 1 slide, 3-mins. This was a fun format and allowed for more people to share their work in the meeting. It was also pretty friendly to my easily distracted brain. For my research blast, I showed off the latest version of the Adventures in Model Land system I have been working on (see above for more). Following the research blasts there was a ‘world café’ style discussion where we debating crucial topics including ‘what is a game?’, ‘how do we best market environmental games?’, and ‘how do we evaluate our games?’.
Following the lunch break there was a chance to play demos of some of the games. This also gave the developers an opportunity to playtest and get feedback. For example, Games for Geoscience 2024 keynote Matteo Menapace was testing a streamlined card-based version of the immensely popular Daybreak game, provisionally titled Dawn.
I enjoyed catching up with my former University of Hull colleague, Steven Forrest, who was sharing the excellent work the Energy & Environment Institute have been doing with The Flood Recovery Game. This game is played with flood risk stakeholders, including community groups, to identify and better understand systemic gaps in the process of recovering after flooding. I’m sure I’ll do a summary of the research behind it in the near future.
Another highlight for me was playing the 2D city-builder game Oxygen Not Included. Whilst this is a commercial game, it was being used by Truzaar Dordi to help students understand how complex and coupled human-environment systems operate. This, along with some of the earlier discussions, reminded me of the power of good game (and model) design to effectively simulate complex systems whilst steering clear of becoming complicated. Complex is good, complicated is not.
As much as I enjoyed Play for the Planet, I did reflect on the lack of professional games designers at the meeting. There is a strong desire from that community to be part of the work tackling environmental issues, evidenced by the success and growth of movements like Playing for the Planet Alliance and the Global Green Game Jam. I would like to see much more interaction between those networks and our own academic networks like Play for Planet and Games for Geoscience. How? I’m still figuring that one out…
The Play for Planet network was established by and is run by the York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI), led by Linda Dunlop, Prasad Sandbhor, Pen Holland, Judith Krauss, Anna Morfitt, and Daisy Kemp. It is open to games designers, researchers, and educators with an interest in using games to address environmental crises. You can learn more and join the network here.
*I must remember to take photos when I attend things but I was having too much fun!
Building a Business Plan for Creative Success
Back in my January issue of Imagination Engines I wrote about accountability and how I hoped to use this newsletter to keep myself accountable to my own plans. In hand with this was a promise to produce a business plan and progress report each April so I can measure if I have been successful or not. It might also stop my mind wondering into new projects that take me further from my goal and help me know what I should say yes to and, probably more importantly, what I should say no to.
I promised to produce my first business plan in April this year and here it is if you fancy a read. As it turns out, my business plan is not much of a business plan after all. My ambition, the end game for all my work with FloodSkinner, is not to make money and to sustain myself off the profits of a small business but a means to be creative and work on things I enjoy. Ultimately, I want to write a book and everything I do should contribute to that.
I start with my mission: to empower people to unlock their full potential by transforming their imagination into a powerful, actionable skill. I will do this by providing science communication and education consultation and services.
A common way of planning business activities is to use a funnel analogy. At the bottom of the funnel is the actual stuff that makes you profit – it has a very narrow focus. In my analogy, I replace profit-making with writing my book. In the middle of the funnel are activities that help build relationships with people who could be potential customers. In my analogy, these are the research projects and workshops I will work on that help me make connections and learn more deeply about relevant topics. Finally, the top of the funnel is the widest point and this is about building an audience and signing people up to your mission.
Businesses should start at the top and progressively narrow their focus. This means starting with the mission, the purpose for why they exist, and only then do they progress down through the funnel and find that thing they can provide that will produce a profit. In 2025, I am still at the top of the funnel and my activities will be focussed on continuing to build an audience, both through this newsletter and on my YouTube channel.
I hope you will continue to join me on this journey.
Gaming Environments… no more…
I have sadly decided to retire the Gaming Environments newsletter. This was where I shared the latest news I had found from the nexus of gaming and tackling environmental issues. It was a surprisingly time consuming process to put it together and it does not help me get to where I want to be – managing my time is increasingly important.
I will be more actively recruiting volunteers to support Games for Geoscience in the future, so if you would be interested in taking over the Gaming Environments newsletter please do get in touch (chris at floodskinner dot games).
About This Newsletter
I am Chris Skinner, a science communicator, STEM professional, and ADHDer. I am on a mission empowering people to unlock their full potential by transforming imagination into a powerful, actionable skill. This newsletter tracks my journey. I would like you to join me, so please subscribe. The newsletter also includes a copy of Gaming Environments, the monthly news relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment that I collate for the Games for Geoscience website. This newsletter is free and I do not offer a paid tier. If you would like to say thank you and/or help me in my mission please buy me a coffee using the link below.
Views expressed in this newsletter are mine and do not represent those of my employer. Content and links are provided for informational purposes and do not constitute endorsements. I am not responsible for the content of external sites, which may have changed since this newsletter was produced.
Welcome to the April edition of Imagination Engines. My month ahead is going to busy getting ready for the European Geoscience Union General Assembly – I am attending as part of my day job this year whilst also doing my usually Games for Geoscience bits. To get the full lowdown on this year’s (unofficial) EGU Games Day, scroll down the Gaming Environments newsletter at the end of this newsletter.
Building Blocks of Environmental Communication
I’m not the sort of person who starts a project by doing loads of preparation and extensive planning. My neurodivergent brain much prefers to dive right in, try things out, and figure out what works along the way. I think this is quite common with ADHDers, making us well suited to things that require flexibility and rapid ingenuity but less suited to strategic thinking. It is a double edged sword for an academic. On the one-hand, the heuristic mindset and approach is a blessing for experimenting but can often leave you lacking the theoretical framework in which to place and define your work.
My science communication journey started in 2015 at the first Hull Science Festival. Back then I was running a hacked version of my model of the Humber Estuary that allowed people to change sea level in it. It was the idea of my then boss, Prof Tom Coulthard but it was my job to make and demonstrate it. In the 10+ years since, I have gained a lot of experience in science and environmental communication, trying out lots of ideas and exploring a shed load more. Surely, there’s plenty of knowledge stored in my head that would be useful to share with others?
This was my challenge when I was asked to give a two hour session on Environmental Communication to the Geography students at York St John University (see last month’s Imagination Engine to read more about my Visiting Fellowship there). The students will be undertaking research projects in Slovenia and as part of their coursework they will be creating communication materials to share that research, including posters, short-form videos, and social media posts. My session was to prepare them for this.
What I really appreciated from this experience was that it finally got me to sit down and pull my experiences together into a single narrative – a story told through powerpoint. The question I asked myself was ‘what is it that I do when I design an exhibit? What am I trying to achieve when I put a video together? I compiled together my building blocks for effective environmental communications:
Aim for impact – your communications want to change something, what is it, and how does it work towards it?
Embrace a behavioural model for change – work with the way people’s brains work, learn from psychologists.
Avoid robbing people of agency – empower people, don’t drown them in doom and gloom.
Emphasise positive actions – show examples of others doing good work so they won’t feel like Billy no mates.
Structure an engaging narrative – tell a story, don’t give a scientific report.
Share the ‘Hero’s Journey’ – all good stories have a hero who changes and grows, who it is?
Make it resonate with your audience – make your message relevant to the things your audience cares about.
When I reflect on the building blocks I shared, it was apparent that my approach is still that of a practitioner – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I find ideas and I apply them. It is still my ambition to put my work into relevant theoretical frameworks and critically reflect on the literature in the many fields I have drawn from, including psychology, museology, gaming, and scenography. Maybe one day I will study a Master’s degree in science communication to force me to do it!
If you’d like to learn more about my building blocks of environmental communication then Subscribe to my YouTube channel. I plan to turn the session into a series of resources that I will post there, possibly in the second half of 2025.
Inspiring Interactions – Ayo Sokale
Ayo is incredible. She is a colleague of mine at the Environment Agency and I first encountered her when she gave a keynote at my department’s annual face-to-face meeting. Ayo is autistic and her talk that day was the first time I had heard someone talk positively about their neurodivergence, whilst still acknowledging the challenges. I was struggling in the early part of my ADHD journey and I needed this message.
Ayo is incredible. She is a colleague of mine at the Environment Agency and I first encountered her when she gave a keynote at my department’s annual face-to-face meeting. Ayo is autistic and her talk that day was the first time I had heard someone talk positively about their neurodivergence, whilst still acknowledging the challenges. I was struggling in the early part of my ADHD journey and I needed this message.
I remember a colleague asking Ayo what she did to relax and Ayo’s answer was “I’m learning to fly a helicopter”. This last point chimes with my own neurodivergent experience – both myself and Amy relax by doing things. For Amy it is things like learning new languages, for me it is putting together this newsletter. Ayo’s answer helped me to understand this about ourselves and also taught me the power of talking about your experiences. You never know who might be listening who needed to hear exactly that.
I asked Ayo a few short questions about what imagination means to her.
Why is imagination important to the work you do?
Imagination is about creativity, and creativity is about thinking in new ways. It’s not always about generating entirely new ideas but rather about connecting existing ones in ways others might not see. It allows us to apply knowledge innovatively, solve problems effectively, and add unique value. My interest in a wide range of areas allows me to do this effectively and imagine a whole new world.
How do you keep your imagination sharp?
Learning. I think it is important to always keep learning but most importantly following those organic glimmers and curiosities as they strike you as that feeds your imagination and enables you to think in wild and wonderful ways.
What are you currently working on that you would like to shout about?
I am focusing my energy currently on my AI coaching app, with the hope everyone in the world will try it and find value in coaching tools which I think helps us all to realise our potential.
A bunch of new research publications
I have a whole bunch of new papers recently published to tell you about. I can’t take (all) the credit though as they have been led by amazing colleagues. First, a huge shout out especially to Josh Wolstenholme who has been working hard to publish various bits of his PhD research.
The first paper in this update led by Josh covers the modelling work performed for his PhD. He used an enhancement of CAESAR-Lisflood I wrote that allows users to represent leaky woody dames in the model, including those with flow gaps underneath. This provides an ideal tool to simulate the long-term changes natural flood management can cause in rivers. Josh’s research demonstrates the feasibility of this including verification against field observations.
This is the second paper Josh has produced from his PhD research, currently under review but you can access the pre-print. Whilst the paper above covers his modelling work, this one covers his fieldwork. This includes some enjoyable, yet very cold, trips to Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire, and the installation of trail cams. The field work observed changes to the river before and after natural flood management interventions had been undertaken.
I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this paper out! Five years ago this was going to my big paper, the one with significant findings rather than some niche model sensitivity tests. But every time I made progress something in the model popped up to frustrate me. After I left Hull in 2021 I let it sit. Last year, Josh picked it up again and brought fresh eyes and energy to it. He has done a brilliant job and made it his own.
The way we assess flood risk assumes rivers do not change shape during floods. In the majority of cases this is a reasonable assumption, however, the modelling work here shows that it is not always the case. Large amounts of sediment can be transported downstream and deposited, increasing flood inundations and volumes during later stages of the same event.
This paper, led by Katie Parsons, describes the work we did co-creating educational materials to support the Help Callum and Help Sali 360 videos. The videos came about when I worked with Alison Lloyd-Williams to use my immersive storytelling research to tell the real-life stories of flood-affected children that were shared through Alison’s research. Katie brought her education expertise to work with children, young people, and teachers to create resources to use the videos in the classroom.
I have been so privileged to get to collaborate with amazing and wonderful researchers like Josh and Katie. It’s also great to see them work together on the HedgeHunter’s project too. I had nothing to do with this but it is really cool work:
Back in 2020, just before the lockdown, Katie took part in my NERC-funded Earth Arcade Academy project with a project called INSECURE and it grew massively since (nothing to do with me!). Katie used creative methods to foster intergenerational engagement in communities at risk of coastal erosion. Even though my contribution was tiny and remote, it is such a great project I am going to pretend I had a small hand in it!:
Both Josh and Katie are now at Loughborough University and working on new projects together. I cannot wait to see what they will produce next.
Good Morning – A Solo Roleplay Game
Those who work to plan and prepare for disasters will often use a method called counterfactuals. It proposes ‘what if?’ questions to the planners and they work out how they would respond if that circumstance arose. Similarly, after something bad happens we often look back and think about what we might have done differently.
Downward counterfactuals combine these two methods. It looks back at something that happened and asks ‘what if this other thing happened too?’. For example, planners might look back at how they responded to a disaster and then ask what they would have done if they lost power to their operations room, or if the phone network went down, for example.
Good Morning is a very simple solo roleplay game. It asks you to first generate a task and then generate a complicating factor. You respond by writing down how you would respond to these. Then, generate a further complicating factor to add to your scenario. How does this change your response?
To generate a task or factor, roll two 6-sided dice, one after the other. The first roll is the first digit and the second the second digit. For example, roll a 2, then a 3, your result is 23. Then find that number on the corresponding table.
This isn’t meant to be serious, just a bit of fun to get you thinking – and imagining – how you might act is some very normal and some very odd circumstances. I hope you enjoy!
FloodSkinner YouTube Update
It has been an unusually busy month on my YouTube channel with the release of three new Shorts. The first was a test of my new kit, having recently purchased an Insta360 x4 and a Rode Wireless Go 3 microphone set. The mic receiver handily attaches to the side of the camera, allowing me to film in 360 and have two people radio mic-ed at once. I’m exciting about what I could do with this set up.
I’ve been desperate to test it, so during a quick trip to Hull I had a play around near the barrier and later put this video below together. Unfortunately, my desktop PC really struggled editing the 8K video, so a new PC is on the shopping list (don’t forget to check out my Ko-fi link at the bottom of the newsletter!).
I am very pleased to bring my series on the Sustainable Development Goals to a close this month! A total of 18 videos, covering the 17 goals and a ‘half-time’ summary, which I started in October 2023. The reason I chose a series on the SDGs was because it would give a sustained amount of content in order to practice and learn filming and editing videos and hopefully you can see that progression through the series.
The video are from having gone viral but at last count the series has been collated over 1300 views on YouTube and about the same again on Instagram. I just need another 2,998,700 views on them to be eligible to be a YouTube partner!
I have enjoyed making these short form videos so will continue to do so but I have to admit, I’m pleased I don’t have any more SDG to cover!
Gaming Environments
Gaming Environments contains all the news I have found relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment. This news is also published on the Games for Geoscience website each month and can be found here.
The (unofficial) European Geoscience Union Games Day is back for 2025! As is now traditional, the middle day of the General Assembly will host both the Games for Geoscience sessions and the world famous Geoscience Games Night.
Games for Geoscience Poster Session – Weds 30th April, 14:00-15:45 CEST (display until 18:00), Hall X2 – In-person online.
Games for Geoscience Oral Presentations – Weds 30th April, 16:15-18:00 CEST, Room -2.41/2.42 – Hybrid in-person and Zoom.
(The World Famous) Geoscience Games Night – Weds April 30th, 18:00-19:30 CEST, Foyer D – In-person only.
Want to go Into Model Land? Join this workshop at the European Geoscience Union General Assembly (Wed, 30 Apr, 14:00–15:45 CEST. Room -2.82) to learn how to use tabletop roleplay games to explore the bizarre world’s created by numerical models. It is inspired by Escape from Model Land written by Erica Thompson. More details here.
The current issue of Consilience, the “online journal exploring the spaces where the science and the arts meet” is out. Issue 20 is themed about Change and can be read here. Submissions for Issue 21 open on 31st March 2025 with the theme Chaos.
I am Chris Skinner, a science communicator, STEM professional, and ADHDer. I am on a mission empowering people to unlock their full potential by transforming imagination into a powerful, actionable skill. This newsletter tracks my journey. I would like you to join me, so please subscribe. The newsletter also includes a copy of Gaming Environments, the monthly news relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment that I collate for the Games for Geoscience website. This newsletter is free and I do not offer a paid tier. If you would like to say thank you and/or help me in my mission please buy me a coffee using the link below.
Views expressed in this newsletter are mine and do not represent those of my employer. Content and links are provided for informational purposes and do not constitute endorsements. I am not responsible for the content of external sites, which may have changed since this newsletter was produced.
Welcome to the March edition of Imagination Engines! How is it March already? I’m starting this newsletter with some personal news I have been eager to share with the world but have been holding in since before Christmas – I have been appointed a Visiting Fellow at York St John University!
This is a voluntary role, supported by Associate Professor Pauline Couper, Associate Head of Geography and the Liberal Arts. The role will see me supporting students in the area of environmental communication through lectures and project co-supervision. I can’t wait to start working with the students and helping them develop their ideas.
York St John, or YSJ, is my local University. My wife has been working there since last year and I have had the pleasure of visiting the campus many times now. I have been deeply impressed by their commitment to sustainability and also social mobility. It is currently the Good University Guide’s 2025 University of the Year for Social Inclusion. Their ethos aligns with my own and I am proud to join the YSJ family.
As joyful as I am at joining YSJ, I am equally sad to be saying goodbye to the University of Hull at the end of this month. I was an undergraduate at Hull, I did my PhD there, and progressed from research assistant to a research fellow in the Energy and Environment Institute there before leaving to join the Environment Agency. For the last four years I have been a visiting researcher there. Nearly 20 years in total!
I have been pleased to contribute over those four years as a visiting researcher but over time – as people move on, projects finish, and leadership changes – my links have grown very thin. With Amy leaving and us moving to York, now feels the right time to finally say a reluctant goodbye. The University of Hull will always feel like ‘home’ to me but I imagine I will visit in the future to see friends, see how the campus has changed, and for one more piece of the ginger flapjack.
You will never know how much I loved you…
Inspiring Interactions: Sam Illingworth’s Games, Science, and Poetry
Ideas do not come out of nowhere. We are all influenced by the environment around us. We absorb information and experiences that shape our mindsets. The people we encounter will bring us new ways of seeing the world and inspire us. In this new item, which I hope to make a regular feature, I introduce you to someone who has been an inspiration to me and ask them a few questions about their thoughts on imagination. I’m going go to start with legendary science-poet, Professor Sam Illingworth.
Sam is a Professor in Academic Practice at Edinburgh Napier University. After completing a PhD in Atmospheric Physics at the University of Leicester, Sam instead chose to pursue a career in science communication. He is best known for his poetry, with his science poetry blog attracting over 100,000 readers a year.
He is dedicated to service in scicomm too. He is the Chief Executive Editor for Geoscience Communication and founder of science-art journal Consilience. He was a convener for the popular EGU science communication session, which was where I first met Sam after I presented my work with Humber in a Box.
Sam shares my love for games and has published many himself, including a climate change hack of Settlers of Catan and Carbon City Zero. He gave me a hugest of legs up in my career when he and Rolf Hut approached me about starting Games for Geoscience at EGU – it wouldn’t have happened without them.
I refer to Sam on how science communication research should happen: innovative, blurring boundaries, fun, yet thoroughly evidence-based. Every so often, I revisit his presentation from when he accepted the Katie and Maurice Krafft Award to remind me of these things.
Why is imagination important to the work you do?
Imagination is at the heart of everything I do – whether it is writing poetry, exploring how students interact with GenAI, or making games. For me, poetry is a way of stretching thought, a means of making connections between ideas and disciplines that might not otherwise meet. It is also a space for possibility, for imagining the world not just as it is but as it could be.
How do you keep your imagination sharp?
Writing poetry is one of the best ways I know to keep my imagination alive. The constraints of form – whether haiku, sonnet, or something more free form – force me to think differently, to approach ideas from new angles. I also find that collaborating across disciplines, whether with artists, scientists, or educators, pushes me to engage with new perspectives and ways of thinking.
What are you currently working on you would like to shout about?
Two projects I am particularly excited about at the moment:
Student x GenAI ( https://www.studentxgenai.co.uk/) explores how students are using generative AI, giving them a platform to share their experiences and perspectives. It is an ongoing, collaborative project funded by the Leverhulme Trust that raises some fascinating questions about creativity, authorship, and learning in an AI-shaped world.
Rooted in Crisis ( https://rootedincrisis.com/) is an incredible project at the intersection of science, art, and environmental storytelling. It uses games and narrative to explore climate change, and we should hopefully go live on Kickstarter later this year. We also have some new artwork to share very soon!
Failure of Imagination in Flooding (2)
In a previous post, I looked at how a failure of imagination potentially contributed to a tragic loss of life in the 2021 floods across Northern Europe. Because people were not able to grasp the potential impacts of the flood that they were being warned of, they did not take appropriate action to keep themselves safe. Professor Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading described the role of scientists here as “helping people see the invisible”.
Recent research led by Joy Ommer, part of Cloke’s research group, begins with the line “What’s the worst that could happen?“. The paper, ‘Surprise floods: the role of our imaginations in preparing for disasters‘ – published open-access in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences – looks back at those floods in 2021 and explores the role a lack of imagination played. Crucially, it also shows the role we as scientists have in helping people understand risks.
Ommer places imagination in the context of this research as “the ability to depict a particular situation in your mind and your actions linked to that situation“. We use this cognitive ability to visualise in our everyday decision-making and for trying to work out what the future might hold. It is informed by our experiences and our ability to imagine – Ommer describes people as having different abilities to imagine, which may be cultivated, but does not explore it as a skill that can be trained. Importantly for disaster preparedness, imagination plays a key role in risk perception by adding to our reality and existing knowledge of a situation.
The research used a survey of people who were affected by the floods to better understand their perspectives. As highlighted in the paper, many of those affected reported that their ability to understand the impacts of the flooding was lacking – it was unimaginable or they did not have the imagination to understand the scale of it. Several linked their inability to imagine the flooding to a lack of preparedness for it. To many, it was only when they saw videos of flooding happening, and feeling empathy for those in the videos, that they started to comprehend the potential consequences for themselves.
This research by Ommer and co-authors highlights and breaks down key aspects about how imagination is linked to risk perception and preparedness for disasters. The solutions they propose include using forecasts and warnings designed to trigger imaginations. They also argue that we need to work with those at risk to cultivate their imaginations using creative approaches, such as local storylines, and helping them to visualise potential impacts.
This is a really important and interesting paper for understanding the important role imagination has to play in disaster preparedness.
Deskinning ‘Environmental’ Games
Back in 2019, at the peak of my work on the Earth Arcade, I picked up a board game called Photosynthesis. I am not a big board game player but I was attracted by its beautiful, and very ‘green’, aesthetic and its tactile tree playing pieces*. I was also drawn by its promising environmental messaging, with the publisher’s, Blue Orange, motto proudly stated ‘Hot Games Cool Planet’.
I also remember playing it with Amy. Each turn the sun moves around the board. You plant trees. Those trees collect light energy and cast shadows on other tree to stop them collecting energy. You use energy to grow your trees or plant new ones. You score by chopping grown trees down. We remarked how it was bizarre how you won an environmentally-themed game through deforestation but then thought no more of it. I went on to use the game as an example of an environmentally themes board game as part of my Earth Arcade Academy launch event.
Dr Chloé Germaine and Prof Paul Wake of the Manchester Game Centre think about games on a whole different level to most people. Certainly more than me. Recently, I was very happy to be invited to the University of York’s Environmental Sustainability at York (ESAY) by Director of Education, Prof Lynda Dunlop, to hear Chloé and Paul talk about their research. And Photosynthesis was right in the heart of their work.
Games can be broken down into their components: the mechanisms of the rules and systems that dictate how it plays; the dynamics of player inputs and decision-making; and the skin of aesthetics and story that add flavour to the game. They saw through the skin of Photosynthesis to what it was hiding underneath. It isn’t an environmental game at all, it is a war game and they were going to show it by peeling back the game’s skin and revealing its true nature.
Chloé and Paul took the game back to its bare bones. They created a new narrative based on the siege of Bastogne during World War 2’s Battle of the Bulge. New artwork was commissioned for the board and all of the game assets. The rule book was reproduced but not rewritten – only names were changed. Suppressive Fire was created. Functionally, the game was completely unchanged yet visually it was unrecognisable. When they tested it alongside Photosynthesis, audiences preferred the deskinned version as the narrative fit the mechanism more comfortably.
The presentation taught me valuable lesson about the importance game mechanics. The way a game works, the decisions it compels players to make, are a huge part of what they take away. Assuming good faith from developers, the mechanics of their game will be leaving players having learned the wrong message. A pretty, green-coloured skin is not enough to make a game environmentally-themed, especially when it is rooted in a system that is creating the problem.
You can read more in Chloé’s chapter, Nature’ Games in a Time of Crisis, in Material Game Studies: A Philosophy of Analogue Play. More publications based on this work are in the pipeline and will likely be included in the Gaming Environments newsletter in the future.
The Imagination Muscle by Albert Read
A few years ago we started a new Christmas tradition in our house. On We would each buy each other a book – we’d say what we wanted – and on Christmas Eve we’d exchange them and read them in bed with some nice hot chocolate. We turn the lights day, put on some fairy lights, and snuggle up warm under the duvet to read our books, accompanied by our cats. I’m not going to claim originality, The exchange of books is a common tradition in Iceland that inspired the term Jólabókaflóðið, or Yule Book Flood, which refers to the release of new books at this time of year to fuel the demand. The duvet, the lights, and the hot chocolate is inspired by the Danish concept of hygge, its meaning elusive but involves coziness and warm atmosphere.
The problem is, unlike my wife, I have never been an avid reader. It is something I find hard to focus on and get easily distracted and frustrated. For what I can now see as a form of accommodation, I chose a graphic novel the first time round, the first volume of Scott Pilgrim series (I’m a big fan of the film). In 2023, I reached the end of the series and I had to recommend something else. In the last few years I have discovered audiobooks and they have revolutionised my reading habits – I’ve always wanted to read but it just was not accessible for me – I have read more in these past couple of year than I have in the rest of my life. I wanted something to inspire me and my imagination and settled on The Imagination Muscle by Albert Read.
I did not anything about this book or its author. I was drawn to the title and its promising subtitle of “Where good ideas come from (and how to have more of them)”, which perfectly resonates with my journey of seeking imagination as a skill. At 7 hours and 51 minutes long, I did not consume the whole book on Christmas Eve and it kept me inspired until mid-January whilst I sorted the kitchen and the cats at the end of the day.
I must admit, it did not meet my expectations. But that is not a negative. From the title and the blurb, I was expecting something that would be more of a lifestyle guide, with a stronger focus on the “and how to have more of them” angle. I thought it would be packed with helpful tips and exercises you could do to practice and strengthen that ‘imagination muscle’. This is not that book but I am pleased it was not.
In the book, the author takes us on a deep dive of human imagination, both individual and collective, as it has developed in concert with society – a symbiotic relationship. He weaves this narrative, from the earliest cave paintings to the latest technological developments, showing that society has developed because of imagination and that imagination has developed, and been allowed to flourish, because of the advancement of society. He shows how historical leaps, like the emergence of language and the inventions of the printing press and the internet, born from imagination and building on chains of individual genius, have facilitated great expansions of imagination. The journey Albert Read takes the reader on is enlightening and enriching.
But that is not to say there is not anything helpful in here on how to build your imagination muscle. There are explorations of what made people so imaginative (and what can lead to deterioration of the muscle). For example, Read demonstrates how the ‘beginners mindset’ is fertile ground for imagination and good ideas – that space of uncertainty and needing to learn creating a breeding ground of problem solving. Maybe ADHDers tend to be creative and imaginative because we are always trying something new! Connection with nature, the rhythm of walking, and the power of coffee as both a stimulate and its role in networking are all discussed.
I was very pleased I chose this book. I really enjoyed listening to it and found myself both informed and inspired by the human story of imagination laid out by Read. The imagination as a muscle is a useful metaphor and a different, yet complimentary, way of thinking to imagination being a skill. Both attest to it being something that gets better with practice and advocate for us to make time to do just that.
YouTube Update
In the last month I have released two new YouTube Shorts onto my FloodSkinner channel. Both are part of my Sustainable Development Goals series, covering the progress of the goals at their half-way point to 2030.
These two videos cover Goals 14 and 15, Life Below Water and Life on Land respectively. I think the UN must have been getting tired when naming these later goals as the full titles just keep getting longer. For example, Goal 15’s full name is:
“Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”
Catchy, right? With Shorts needing to be under 1 minute long, these longer titles are causing me problems as they are beginning to take up a significant chunk of the videos!
With each tranche of videos in this series I have sought to push myself a little further. For these videos I tried out my green screen for the first time, having let it sit unused for a few months. It took me an afternoon to figure out the editing to make it work but I got there in the end. I’m really pleased with the results too. The greenscreen allows me to film anywhere, so I can film in a larger room and actually set my lighting rig up in a way that works.
I am pleased with these videos and really happy with how the greenscreen turned out and what it will allow me to do with future videos. YouTube disagrees though, as my video for Goal 15 is currently my worst performing video on the channel! Even worse than the Fog one…
The footage for Goals 16 and 17 is ‘in the can’ and I hope to get these edited up over the next month or two and get this series finished off.
Gaming Environments
Gaming Environments contains all the news I have found relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment. This news is also published on the Games for Geoscience website each month and can be found here.
Games for Geoscience 2025 at the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly is looking to be another strong and exciting session! Thank you to all our contributors who submitted 21 abstracts to the session. The convenor team is now working behind the scenes to assign oral and poster presentations to the submissions and the schedule will be posted on March 14 2025.
The infamous Geoscience Games Night will also be returning to EGU in 2025! The date, time, and location will be confirmed on March 14 2025. Any attending is free to bring and host or game or just turn up to play. If you are bringing a game, please contact the convenors so they can add it to the list of confirmed games.
Former Games for Geoscience convenor the awesome Dr Jazmin Scarlett recently presented at An Evening of Unnecessary Detail. In her late hearted and humorous talk, Jaz describes the good and the bad of Lava Flows in Video Games. Check it out on YouTube below.
The current issue of Consilience, the “online journal exploring the spaces where the science and the arts meet” is out. Issue 19 is themed about Insects and can be read here. Submissions for Issue 21 open on 31st March 2025 with the theme Chaos.
Environmental Sustainability at York’s environmental games meeting is returning for 2025. Play for the Planet 2 will be held at the University of York, April 25 2025. The deadline to register is March 14 2025, and you can do those things here.
The 6th Workshop on Tabletop Games, FDG 2025, is taking place April 15-18 2025 in Vienna and Graz, Austria. The workshop aims “to address the gap between research and practice, looking at the ways in which academics can apply their tools to the discussion of analog games“. You can find out more here.
There’s a new roleplaying game exploring governance of water pollution, published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Debating Solutions to Water Contamination: a Role-Play Game is inspired by the ‘Model UN’ and is available for free here.
Power of Play is a global report on the reasons people play games. Produced by Videogames Europe, the survey found that whilst “having fun” was the main reason people played games there were many more, including for wellbeing and having an outlet. Find the full report here.
Games for Change have released their Games for Change: 2024 Impact Report. It covers the annual festival attended by over 2300 people, the 2024 Games and SDGs summit, and 10 years of the G4C Student Challenge. Find it here.
In other Games for Change, the 2025 Games for Change Festival will be held on June 26-27 at the Parsons School of Design, New York, USA.
Looking to make your games as accessible as possible? Check out these free Games Accessibility Guidelines, a “collaborative effort between a group of studios, specialists and academics”. Find them here.
The journal Media and Communication has published an open access special issue: Digital Games at the Forefront of Change: On the Meaningfulness of Games and Game Studies. Articles cover the use of Cities:Skylines (one of my favourite games) for urban planning education, emotions in commercial war games, political discourse in games, and the experience of women, and playing women, in games. You can access the special issue here.
About this Newsletter
I am Chris Skinner, a science communicator, STEM professional, and ADHDer. I am on a mission empowering people to unlock their full potential by transforming imagination into a powerful, actionable skill. This newsletter tracks my journey. I would like you to join me, so please subscribe. The newsletter also includes a copy of Gaming Environments, the monthly news relating to the nexus of gaming and the environment that I collate for the Games for Geoscience website. This newsletter is free and I do not offer a paid tier. If you would like to say thank you and/or help me in my mission please buy me a coffee using the link below.
Views expressed in this newsletter are mine and do not represent those of my employer. Content and links are provided for informational purposes and do not constitute endorsements. I am not responsible for the content of external sites, which may have changed since this newsletter was produced.
GeoSkinner 