Paula MacDowell
Educational Technology and Design, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. paula.macdowell@usask.ca
Brent Olson
Educational Technology and Design, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. bjo935@mail.usask.ca
Abstract
Despite the growing global problems of unsustainable consumption, exploitation of resources, and environmental degradation, which threaten the planet’s health and our survival, many students and teachers remain largely uninvolved in climate change action or discourse for sustainable living. Crucially, today’s children and youth deserve to be better educated on what uncontrolled and unsustainable consumption patterns mean for their future. Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is highly complex and challenging in traditional classroom settings, such that students understand the connections between their actions and the consequences on the environment. The purpose of this study was to identify how to design immersive virtual environments that foster youth capacity-building around sustainability education and environmental stewardship. Seven youth (ages 12-18), two teachers, and two researchers used the Oculus Quest headset to explore the SDGs in the social virtual reality platform AltspaceVR (weekly meetings were two hours for a period of three months). Participants experienced guided learning adventures in virtual worlds about the SDGs and completed a presentation to demonstrate their learning. Quantitative and qualitative techniques were used for data collection and analysis, including surveys, participant observation, and a group interview. Findings show that engaging youth with immersive virtual experiences can be an effective and affordable solution for visualizing issues like climate breakdown and increasing empathy for conservation efforts to protect the Earth. An essential contribution from the research is how teachers and designers can use immersive virtual reality to enhance the classroom learning environment by engaging learners' sense of wonder, agency, and presence.
Keywords: sustainability education, immersive virtual reality, learning environments, SDGs