Climate Literacy: Creating a Multilevel Interactive Platform for Climate Education

Abstract

Climate change is an urgent and threatening global challenge with broad adverse effects on terrestrial ecological functions, human communities, and future generations (IPCC 2021) [1]. Solving such a complex problem requires an informed and engaged populace that possesses the necessary skills, knowledge, and motivation to not only engage in sustainable behaviours but also foster meaningful collective action [2]. Climate change education is considered to be critical in nurturing climate literacy, concern and agency at all levels of the learning process (UNESCO 2010). However, conventional resources for introducing climate change essentials have difficulty conveying abstract scientific ideas and visualising the distant impacts that do not connect to learners‘ values and experiences [3]. Climate change causes, consequences and solutions are often misunderstood by students [4], which might impede meaningful engagement. In order to transcend these barriers and limitations, powerful tools like interactive digital technologies are leveraged for climate change education [5]. Interactive platforms provide dynamic and visually appealing climate information that is related through video animation simulation games [6]. The transparency given by interactivity encourages learners to 'make sense' of the content used, that is, complete and design it for themselves [7], resulting in active learning and retention. Personalisation and adaptive learning technologies can differentiate content or activities according to the age, prior knowledge (‗learning history‘) and interests of each learner [8]. However, the design principles and effectiveness of interactive climate education platforms have not been well-studied in different age groups [9]. It is important to take age into account when designing interactive climate education that is appropriate for the age of learners because cognitive ability, communication needs, as well as engagement style are considerably different over developmental stages [10]. For example, early learners (ages 6-9) need story-driven content, playful activities and anthropomorphism, which makes it hard for them to think about abstract ideas [11]. Adolescents (ages 10- 19) want social interaction, explore their identity and learn something that has real-life applications; they can deal with more difficult subjects [2]. Adults (20 years and above), on the other hand, have more developed cognitive abilities but may also have rigid mental models and worldviews that influence how they engage in climate change-related issues [12]. As such each group requires customised content and interactive design approaches so as to optimise learning around climate change. The present research tries to bridge these gaps through the design and development of a new multilevel interactive climate education platform tailored to three different age groups of users: early learners, adolescents, and adults. Indeed, the interactive affordances, coupled with age-based design principles, served to improve engagement, knowledge, and agency in relation to climate change across diverse learners. This mixed-methods study included both a quantitative survey and qualitative user testing for usability, engagement, and learning impacts on the platform. Age differences in interaction patterns, content preferences, and outcomes were taken into comparative analysis. The research objectives are to: 1. Build an interactive climate education platform that caters for personalised, age-appropriate user experiences for early learners, adolescents and adults. 2. Quantitatively and qualitatively measure the usability, engagement and learning effects of this platform for each age group. 3. Investigate how individuals of different ages use and respond to platforms in terms of engagement, preferences, and outcomes will likely inform the type of climate education product that can be targeted for age. 4. Design suggestions and best practice for age group wise interactive climate change education. This research contributes to climate change communication, educational technology, and multimedia learning in several ways. First, it introduces and investigates a new interactive platform in which the integration of multiple affordances and design principles can facilitate engaging users of all ages with climate education. Second, it empirically examines how users of different ages interact with, perceive, and learn through an interactive climate application–an underexplored area of research. Third, based on the empirical findings, it provides design implications that can help developers optimise interactive climate education according to the needs of specific age groups. Finally, it extends the use of interactive technologies and design principles to better facilitate public understanding of climate change across multiple generations. The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces the background by describing climate change education challenges, interactive learning affordances, and age-appropriate design principles. Section 3 reviews related work on interactive climate change education platforms and explains the research gaps. Then, Section 4 presents the platform design and technical architecture. Section 5 describes the mixed-methods research design, instruments, and procedures. To follow that up, Section 6 reports the results by analysing each age group‘s usability, engagement, and learning outcomes data. Section 7 compares age differences and similarities in interaction patterns and impacts. Finally, Section 8 discusses the findings along with implications for practice, limitations of this study, and future work directions.