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Corporate trainers have developed a board game to teach beach residents how to pile up an asset.
By KATHY SAUNDERS
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 16, 2003
TREASURE ISLAND -- When the no-name storm struck in March 1993, so much sand covered the Sunset Beach neighborhood that it looked as if it had snowed.
So Ray Green started planting. He knew from his childhood days on the shores of South Carolina that dunes and sea oats would keep that sand on the beach during high winds.
The problem was convincing his neighbors to do the same.
Many of them were sweeping the sand off their property to plant flower gardens or trying to get rid of sea grasses because they block the view to the beach.
Green decided it was time to educate beachfront residents. And he knew how. A board game.
He and his wife, Cathy Rezak, have spent their lives training corporate executives and their employees. In the early 1990s, they developed a game to teach teams of employees about business and finance strategies.
Since 1994, their Tampa company, Paradigm Learning, has trained more than 1-million employees of some 400-plus corporations. For each company, Paradigm creates a board game using stories, visuals, simulated situations, maps and models to educate players.
(Green also is familiar to islanders as a leader of a referendum movement to control beachfront development. With another Sunset Beach resident, he won a temporary injunction to stop the city from enforcing new land development regulations.)
"If you can get people to discover and be in charge of their own learning process, they learn much quicker and they retain what they learn longer," Green said.
His wife added: "We make it fun, we make it interesting and we make it very self-discovery oriented."
The board game concept has worked for Pepsi Cola Bottling Co., Harris Corp., Bank of America Corp., Capital One, FedEx Corp., Honeywell Inc., Frito-Lay Co., Xerox Corp., L.L. Bean, Mobil Oil Co., Texas Instruments, Kimberly-Clark Corp., and most recently, the U.S. Air Force.
About eight months ago, with the help of Treasure Island's Beach Stewardship Committee, Green's company developed a board game about beach revegetation.
"Plant Our Beach" comes with a glossy game board, question cards and a points system. Members of the Sunset Beach Civic Association have played the game, and so have some city officials.
Don Hambidge, the city's Public Works director, said he initially didn't score as well as he thought he would. He learned a few things about coastal management and hopes others do, too.
Winners of Plant Our Beach usually receive a Treasure Island trinket or a chocolate bar as a reward.
But if the game is a hit, the real winner will be the beach, Green said.
Game cards educate players about the best ways to plant along the beach. They also provide a lesson on the economics of beach vegetation. For example, the answer to one question is that sand is money in the bank. The game points out that Miami Beach visitors spent $500 for every $1 the city spent on beach management.
The beach game also comes with a call to action. Green's "discovery learning" technique includes descriptions of what to plant along the beach and how to plant it.
Green and Rezak have planted sea grape and used special fencing to help create dunes behind their home.
"All of that vegetation builds up sand," Green said.
Plant Our Beach cost Green about $150,000 to design. His staff members and Paradigm's consultants donated much of their time to develop the game. The Beach Stewardship Committee provided the local expertise. Green has given the game to the city of Treasure Island.
"We love it," said Bob Minning, chairman of the Treasure Island Beach Stewardship Committee. "It's great. It just presents the overall approach to beach revegetation, and it's an education."
Minning said even he was surprised to learn how many millions of dollars have been spent on beach renourishment.
The game is designed for four to six players at a time.
"We are continuing to pay for instructors to actually run these sessions," Green said. Eventually, he will train local residents to operate the game.
Green plans to offer the board game to any beach community for free. He's going to give a copy to the state, too.
Paradigm has developed and donated educational materials to schools through the Florida Council on Economic Education. A game called Strive to Drive teaches students how to reach the goal of learning to drive and owning a car by developing strategies to get a job, save money, balance a checkbook and buy insurance.
Green said he wants to give back to his community. If his game can bring the beach back, it will be money well spent.