Escape rooms as tools for climate change education: an exploration of initiatives

In the last years we have observed a growing interest in the use of gamification approaches for climate change education. While most practices are related to digital gaming, there is a new trend which is still academically unexplored: escape rooms. The main objective of this paper is to serve as an initial exploratory study in this field by identifying and analysing climate change-related escape rooms. For that purpose we carried out a web search and a qualitative content analysis. A total of 17 initiatives are described and compared, unravelling their main audience, country of origin, topics, scenarios and objectives covered. The paper also highlights what escape rooms can offer to climate change education: experiential and immersive learning, problem solving and critical thinking skills, and a sense of collaboration and urgency

Hyacinth : Waltzes

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/2518/thumbnail.jp

El potencial educativo de las narrativas digitales en la comunicación para el cambio social. Jóvenes Frente al Cambio Climático como estudio de caso

Las narrativas digitales, por sus características intrínsecas, están abriendocampos de interés educomunicativo en algunas temáticas que requierencompromiso y acción social. El cambio climático, por sus dimensiones globales,requiere de una nueva forma de acción ciudadana para la que las nuevasgeneraciones están llamadas a actuar. El presente estudio trata de abordarcuales son los aspectos educomunicativos extraídos de Jóvenes Frente elCambio Climático (JFCC), un proyecto transmedia e interactivo que comportauna doble perspectiva: educar en medios de comunicación y educar con losmedios. Partiendo del supuesto de que JFCC es un proyecto con un granpotencial educomunicativo, y de cara a evaluar los valores añadidos del mismo,basamos nuestra metodología en el análisis descriptivo-cualitativo de laplataforma web así como en el uso de la entrevista

Análisis de los juegos en línea sobre cambio climático: Explorando oportunidades

Online games have been proposed as a promising tool for communication and education. Taking into account the new communicative paradigm of young people and the fact that climate change is one of the main threats to their future, this paper presents a checklist of indicators validated using the Delphi method to analyze the communicative elements of online climate change games targeting young people, and illustrates their use and usefulness with a qualitative analysis of a sample of games produced in Spain. This exploratory study maintains that online climate change games are shaping up to be innovative strategies, thanks to their immersive narrative and interactivity, among other features, which are used to meet the communicative and educational challenges regarding climate change: causes are made visible, actions are portrayed as local, uncertainty is avoided, contextualized information is provided in a positive and proactive tone, and a critical thinking approach is encouraged through decision-making.Los juegos en línea han sido propuestos como herramientas prometedoras para la comunicación y la educación. Teniendo en cuenta el paradigma comunicativo de los jóvenes y que el cambio climático es una de las principales amenazas en su futuro, este artículo presenta un checklist con indicadores validados a través del método Delphi para analizar los elementos comunicativos de juegos en línea sobre cambio climático dirigidos a adolescentes, e ilustra su uso y utilidad mediante un análisis cualitativo de una muestra de juegos producidos en España. Este estudio exploratorio sostiene que los juegos en línea sobre cambio climático se perfilan como estrategias innovadoras haciendo frente a desafíos comunicativos y educativos en torno al cambio climático: la causas se hacen visibles, las acciones se presentan en una escala local, la incertidumbre se evita, la información se contextualiza con un tono positivo y proactivo, y el pensamiento crítico se estimula a través de la toma de decisiones

Gaming climate change: Assessing online climate change games targeting youth produced in Spanish

7th International Conference on Intercultural Education “Education, Health and ICT for a Transcultural World”, EDUHEM 2016, 15-17 June 2016, Almeria, Spain.In search of innovative approaches to raise climate change awareness among digital natives, online and serious games are gaining currency as new platforms for communication, education and social change. Thanks to their interactivity and immersive narrative, games have capacity to convey to young people the problems that they will be facing in the future and enable them to experience these problems directly through the game. In addition, online games can offer the possibility to be implemented in educational contexts as a didactic tool for teachers. This study aims a) to present a checklist with validated evaluation criteria identified through the Delphi method; and b) to conduct a qualitative evaluation of communicative and educative elements of a sample of 24 online climate change games targeting youth and produced in Spanish. Our findings suggest that the games evaluated seem to be on the right path, making the topic of climate change local, visual and connected, although there is still room for improvement in terms of contents, gameplay and didactics

Single-phase transformerless inverter topologies at different levels for a photovoltaic system, with proportional resonant controller

In this paper, we have studied the topologies of single-phase transformerless inverters with different levels using a proportional-integral-resonant (PIR) AC controller, and the multi-level cascade inverter topology with sinusoidal pulse with modulation (SPWM) control in an open and closed loop. To ensure that these photovoltaic inverters can inject a defined amount of reactive power into the grid according to international regulations. Therefore, precise monitoring of the mains voltage vector by a phase-locked loop (PLL) system is applied to ensure the proper functioning of this system. For inverter topologies with less than three levels, the simulation results show that the highly efficient and reliable inverter concept (HERIC) topology performance is better than that of H5 and H6. On the other hand, the performance of the topology H6 ameliorate is superior to those of H4, H5, and HERIC in currents of leakage. On the other hand, for the control of cascaded multi-level closed-loop inverters, we notice that there is an improvement in the spectra and the elimination of all frequency harmonics, close to that of the fundamental, and a reduction in the rate of harmonic current distortion

The educational potential of the digital narratives in the communication for social change. Youth Against Climate Change as a case study

Las narrativas digitales, por sus características intrínsecas, están abriendo campos de interés educomunicativo en algunas temáticas que requieren compromiso y acción social. El cambio climático, por sus dimensiones globales, requiere de una nueva forma de acción ciudadana para la que las nuevas generaciones están llamadas a actuar. El presente estudio trata de abordar cuales son los aspectos educomunicativos extraídos de Jóvenes Frente el Cambio Climático (JFCC), un proyecto transmedia e interactivo que comporta una doble perspectiva: educar en medios de comunicación y educar con los medios. Partiendo del supuesto de que JFCC es un proyecto con un gran potencial educomunicativo, y de cara a evaluar los valores añadidos del mismo, basamos nuestra metodología en el análisis descriptivo-cualitativo de la plataforma web así como en el uso de la entrevista.Digital narratives, thanks to their intrinsic characteristics, are opening fields of interest in topics that require commitment and social action. Climate change, due to its global dimensions, requires a new form of citizen action so that the new generations are challenged to take innovative action. The present study aims at addressing the edu-communication aspects of Youth Against Climate Change, a transmedia and interactive project characterised by a double perspective: education in communication media and education with media. Assuming that JFCC is a project with a high edu-communicative potential, and in order to assess its added value, we base our methodology on the descriptive and qualitative analysis of the web platform as well as interviews

Gamification approaches for education and engagement on pro-environmental behaviors: searching for best practices

Education is a key factor to respond to the threat of climate change, increasing not only knowledge but also encouraging changes in attitudes and behaviors to adopt sustainable lifestyles. Scholars and practitioners in the field of education call for innovative ways of engaging youth—a reason why gamification has gained more attention in recent years. This paper aims at exploring the role of gamification in aecting pro-environmental behavioral change and searching for best practices for educational purposes. For that aim, pro-environmental gamification platforms are identified and analyzed by applying two dierent frameworks: the Octalysis Framework and the Climate Change Engagement through Games Framework. After scanning 181 cases, a final sample of six is analyzed and two of them are selected as best practices with higher potential to engage users in pro-environmental behavioral change: SaveOhno and JouleBug. Meaning, ownership, and social influence, as well as achievability, challenge, and credibility, are seen as core elements that can increase the success of gamification platforms. In conclusion, the more attributes are enclosed in the gamification design, the stronger physical and mental connections it builds up with participants. Insights from this study can help educators to select best practices and gamification designers to better influence behavioral change through game mechanics