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Public Press reporter Chorel Centers sat down with editor Michael Stoll and illustrator Anna Vignet to discuss the creation of a board game that allows teaches players how California’s year-old cap-and-trade greenhouse gas pollution control program works. It’s part of a trend of “gamification” of the news, using interactive formats to engage audiences and teach complex policy issues.

Players work as greenhouse gas tycoons in a race to make money before the caps on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases take full effect. The game is laid out like a Monopoly board.

The project was published in the summer 2013 print edition, and the prototype board game was printed on the back page of the first section of the newspaper. It accompnanied an extensive investigation on California’s cap and trade program, which aims to cut back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020.

Listen to the podcast above, and try your hand at playing the game, or at least walking through it.

See other stories in the package at sfpublicpress.org/climatechange.

Chorel Centers graduated from Mills College, where she received a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing. She served as managing editor of The Campanil, Mills’ student news organization. Chorel also studied at The New School in New York as well as San Francisco City College. Her interests include women’s and social issues, the environment, sports and music writing, and literature. She plans to pursue a career in editing.

Adriel Taquechel is a self-proclaimed news junkie, world traveler, and language lover. He focuses on community-based social and political affairs as a way of keeping people informed and engaged as much as possible. He finds that perhaps no place is better to write stories than in the diverse – and ever changing – Bay Area of California.