Background

The Agricultural Institute of Canada prepared a guide book on the standards of professionalism and ethics for all professional Agrologists. It became mandatory that all professional agrologists abide by the rules set forth in the guide book and the Institute undertook the task to communicate the rules to all of its members.

The Challenge

The guidebook rules are deceptively simple. Most professionals who read the guidelines believe that they would never engage in unethical behaviour. Yet, every year a few will find themselves caught in a bad situation. How did they get there? What did they do wrong?

Often bad situations begin with a seemingly innocuous conversation. An experienced person, a person who has been burned before, would see a red flag. Our challenge was to create a simulation that would give professionals that experience without the consequences.

Our Solution

We learn best from our mistakes. But if the mistake could ruin a reputation or career it would be best to make it in a simulation. Zapdramatic provides life EXPERIENCE through SIMULATIONS. We decided to create an interactive scenario in which the learner had to go through a day in the life of a farm consultant. We carefully laid a number of ethical traps. We expected that most people who played the simulation would find themselves in an unethical situation from which they could not escape. They would learn from that failure and not fall into the same trap on the subsequent attempt.

The benefit of simulated experiences is that failure doesn't mean a life-destroying professional disgrace.

The learner gains the wisdom to recognize the traps and make better, more effective choices.