REES, CAROL
(2014)
Developing Awareness of Connections Between Science, Technology and the Environment through Participation in a Game-Like Approach to Curriculum.
Revista Brasileira de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências (RBPEC), 14 (2).
pp. 1-11.
ISSN 1806-5104
Abstract
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.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Environmental literacy; STSE education; discourse analysis; learning through
video games; middle school education; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education |
| Item ID: |
17352 |
| Depositing User: |
Carol Rees
|
| Date Deposited: |
27 Jun 2023 09:48 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Revista Brasileira de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências (RBPEC) |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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