Towards Eco-Embodiment: Virtual Reality for Building Climate Change Awareness within Education for Sustainable Development

• Main Authors: Kreimeier, Julian, Theelke, Luisa, Denzler, Jonathan, Enders, Florian, Kumar, Samarth, Roth, Daniel
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Climate change; Computer industry; Computing industry; Education; Human computer interaction; Human computer interaction (HCI); Human-centered computing; Interaction paradigms; Professional aspects; Professional topics; Social and professional topics; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Virtual reality
• ISSN: 2771-1110
• DOI: 10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct60411.2023.00130

To foster the understanding of the consequences of one's actions on climate change, low-threshold accessible and understandable content is needed. Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a valuable tool in the field of sustainable development education. However, there remains a lack of practical approaches and empirical insights into fostering climate change awareness through an eco-embodiment perspective. Our prototype addresses this gap by immersing users in a VR experience that simulates an everyday life scenario. The player's activities are calculated as if the entire population of Earth would exhibit such a behavior. At the end of the simulation, they are presented with the long-term scaled global consequences for the environment. Our preliminary evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of this communication method but also reveals necessary gameplay optimizations toward longitudinal pre/post studies to quantify users' learning and behavioral changes.