FLASHBACK TO 2006: “The Design with Nature Game Show gets workshop participants thinking about real things, on the ground, so that they can begin to see how use of the Water Balance Model will help them,” explained Richard Boase
Note to Reader:
In February 2006, the University of British Columbia Okanagan was the venue for a training workshop on the Water Balance Model for British Columbia, a web-based decision support and scenario modeling tool for rainwater source control evaluation.
Organized by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC (APEGBC) in collaboration with the Inter-Governmental Partnership, the workshop was initiated by the City of Kelowna to provide Southern Interior design professionals and others with hands-on training in a computer lab setting.
A Training Workshop About Rainwater Management and ‘Green’ Subdivision Design
“The training workshop was interactive and involved team-teaching in order to provide personalized instruction and/or assistance as needed to work through real scenarios. All workshop participants had their own work station,” explained Kim Stephens. At the time, he was the Project 
Coordinator for the Inter-Governmental Partnership, and leader of the Water Balance Model Training Team.
“Our objective was to create an atmosphere that made learning fun. At the end of the session, participants had an appreciation that the tool is a means to an end in promoting change in the way we think about the relationship between the built and natural environments.”
According to Ted van der Gulik (Ministry of Agriculture & Lands) and Chair of the Inter-Governmental Partnership, “The training workshop was developed in response to interest arising from the success of three outreach and communication events that were held in the cities of Kelowna and Kamloops during the October/November 2005 period. Through events such as these, our goal is to advance the Design with Nature way-of-thinking and acting.”
To Learn More:
To read the complete story, visit Design with Nature & Rainwater Management: UBC-Okanagan hosted Water Balance Model training workshop in February 2006
Richard Boase – providing personalized instruction
Design with Nature Game Show
One of the features of the workshop was the Design with Nature Game Show. Created by Richard Boase and Kim Stephens to stimulate the creative thinking of workshop participants, the ‘game show’ is similar to the tv show Jeopardy in that participants work in teams and are asked to respond to photographs by stating “What design with nature means is…”
According to Richard Boase, “It is a way of having some fun at the start of the workshop. It loosens the group up. It gets them thinking about real things, on the ground, so that they can begin to see how use of the Water Balance Model will help them in their day jobs. We have them work in teams, and we award them points for a correct answer.”
“It is fascinating to see how excited and ‘into it’ people get after a few minutes. The irony is that the grand prize is one hour of personal tutoring by me by phone. Just imagine what they would be like if there was a real prize! It just goes to show how important it is to make a computer modeling workshop fun. If people have fun, they will get more out of the day and perhaps some of the philosophical stuff will actually stick.”
