(51c) Game Based Learning; Reinforcing Process Safety

The concept of process safety has been around a long time but a spate of major accidents in the last decade has further emphasized the need for better and wider training and education. This paper, and accompanying presentation, will outline a novel approach to developing process safety knowledge and competence through Game Based Learning (GBL).

Making learning stick is a universal problem but, based on research that suggests people remember 90% of what they 'do', GBL takes your message out of PowerPoint and broadcasts it interactively to the trainee. A GBL session typically lasts 30-60 minutes, is hands-on and, by using every-day analogies for technical subjects and grounding them in the real world, it is accessible to all personnel across an organization. Indeed, GBL for major accident awareness has been run for school children as part of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) teaching. GBL comes into its own in high hazard industries where, generally speaking, improvement is about small margins.

This paper will touch upon a number of representative games, covering common process safety themes such as layers of protection and safety-critical systems, and will aim to walk participants through the process to demonstrate how similar approaches or concepts can be incorporated within their own training environment.