Enhancing nursing students’ capacity to respond to extreme weather events using an innovative tabletop simulation activity

• Nursing students often lack preparation for responding to extreme weather events. • This paper presents a cost-effective tabletop simulation to enhance response skills. • Implementing this simulation improves readiness for climate challenges in healthcare. The increasing frequency and intensity of climate change-driven extreme weather presents challenges to healthcare systems globally. Nurses, the largest healthcare workforce, often lead disaster responses but may lack the skills and knowledge needed to respond effectively. Accessible, innovative educational approaches would improve workforce readiness. We developed a tabletop simulation to enhance nursing students’ understanding of climate-induced extreme weather events and response strategies. Six simulation scenarios were derived from interviews with nurses who have first-hand experiences in such events. Informal feedback indicated that students believed the simulation enhanced their critical thinking, decision making, collaboration, teamwork, preparedness, and adaptability, in crisis situations. It also prompted reflection on the emotional and ethical considerations of disaster response. This cost-effective, low-stakes simulation enhances critical thinking, decision-making and teamwork skills, contributing to individual and system-wide resilience in response to climate-induced challenges. Tabletop simulations offer a valuable tool for prelicensure education and professional development, immersing learners in realistic, unpredictable scenarios that enhance emergency preparedness.