Developing Awareness of Connections Between Science, Technology and the Environment through Participation in a Game-Like Approach to Curriculum
Keywords:
Environmental literacy, STSE education, discourse analysis, learning through video games, middle school educationAbstract
If we are ever to achieve the goal of redirecting technological development along more environmentally and socially responsible lines we need to provide students with opportunities to examine the processes of science and technology, the possible costs and consequences of this work, and the choices available to us. The purpose of this study is to examine students’ developing environmental literacy in the Heat Game. The Heat Game is a game-like approach to curriculum designed to support students developing their environmental literacy while addressing curriculum requirements for a grade 7 unit, Heat in the Environment, in Ontario, Canada. Based on principles of learning in video-games, the Heat Game recreates a simulation of a science and technology setting wherein student-participants role-play junior professional scientists communicating online within a community of scientists. In their roles they work to solve a virtual challenge to design energy-efficient housing, and reflect on possible environmental and societal consequences of their designs. This study, which is part of a larger design-based research study of The Heat Game, uses discourse analysis to examine online role-playing conversations generated within the game as well as online correspondence between students and their teacher after the game. The study demonstrates that through actions and online conversations in the Heat Game students developed their environmental literacy, including understandings of the relationships between science, technology and the environment and the consequences of choices we make. In addition the study provides support for the ideas of Gee (2007) regarding how we can use the principles of learning in video games to create opportunities for students to develop a literacy; in this case environmental literacy.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The authors are responsible for the veracity of the information provided and for the content of the papers.
The authors who publish in this journal fully agree with the following terms:
- The authors attest that the work is unpublished, that is, it has not been published in another journal, event notices or equivalent.
- The authors attest that they did not submit the paper to another journal simultaneously.
- The authors retain the copyright and grant to RPBEC the right of first publication, with the work licensed simultaneously under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows the sharing of the work with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The authors attest that they own the copyright or the written permission from copyright owners of figures, tables, large texts, etc. that are included in the paper.
- Authors are authorized to take additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (for example, to publish in institutional repository or as a book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after the publication in order to increase the impact and citation of published work.
In case of identification of plagiarism, inappropriate republishing and simultaneous submissions, the authors authorize the Editorial Board to make public what happened, informing the editors of the journals involved, any plagiarized authors and their institutions of origin.