Educational paths on environmental sustainability in virtual worlds

This research project aims to contribute to introduce 11-14 years old students (i.e. Scuola secondaria di primo grado in Italy) to topics related to sustainability and the environmental impact of human activities in the framework of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. This work represents the first attempt to approach this topic in a comprehensive way by using Virtual World environments, with the idea to attract students’ interest as well as vehiculate acquisition of science knowledge and IT competence, in an immersive and stimulating set-up. Topics as Agenda 2030 Sustainable development goals, climate change, environmental footprint indicators, renewable energy, properties and use of critical minerals, and metal recycling were chosen for this research, as they are strictly connected with students’ everyday life (such as rare earth element impact for the production of electronic devices) and therefore useful to attract their attention on sustainability. This works aims also to support Italian schools in the implementation of the recent and mandatory “Civic and environmental education curriculum” focused on links between legality, sustainability and digital skills. Supporting school teaching took on particular meaning as, within months of the introduction of such curriculum, the Covid-19 pandemic made distance learning essential for continuing educational activities. The activities in this research were formerly planned to take place at a distance accessing 3D virtual worlds in form of avatar, so this research was one of the ways in which the pupils of the schools involved were able to carry out engaging activities in remote, feeling "close" to their classmates. Seven different activities were designed and planned to be carried out in virtual worlds (VW), using three different 3D digital platforms (Opensimulator, FrameVR, and Minecraft) for 11-14 years old students. In two of the activities, before involving the students, the learning paths were tested by lower and higher secondary school teachers to evaluate their effectiveness and gather suggestions for improving content and modes of use. The main didactic approaches used were the Game-based learning and the Inquiry-based learning, both typical active learning methods, widely used in virtual worlds. In the first approach, the educational path was set up by the author, to be explored by students. In the second one, students built a path on a specific topic, from the initial idea to the final products, starting from an empty environment or a template scenario. The topic proposed integrate in an interdisciplinary way within the courses of Science, Technology, Math and informatics, but also give the possibility to find interactions with other school subjects (such as English, Italian literature) and give the possibility to introduce other themes related to Agenda 2030 to be developed in the classroom (like climate change, pollution, water availability...). In this research project, topics were developed in different 3D learning scenarios: Iron City / recycle: students built a metal recycle plant starting from scratch, following the typical steps of an inquiry-based learning projects. This pilot project aimed also to address the future design / plan of the research and test the response of students on the theme of waste. Sustainability Hub: a virtual world island based on the platform Opensimulator, where students have an initial approach to sustainability, Agenda 2030, georesources, and environmental footprint indicators. In each thematic zone of the island students deal with scientific contents as well as online games, interactive 3D objects and quizzes, to be solved to allow the access to the following zone. Sustainable City Game: it is a sort of “game of the Goose” developed in cardboard version by Alessandra Beccaceci and set up in virtual version in the Sustainability Hub. Students, alone or in team deal with quizzes and challenges to move from a conventional city to a sustainable city in a ideal path. Powerland – F: based on the platform frameVR, it is an island where students have the “mission” to find answers about themes related to the energy transition and the use of critical materials. They consult multimedia presentations and solve online games. Powerland: is an island where other students are involved in the same activity carried out in Powerland-F nut on the Opensimulator platform. This allows a comparison between the two platforms and draw some comments about their use. Ecocity: it is a city where students investigate the impact of energy in terms of carbon footprint and suggest systems and solutions to reduce the carbon footprint in a urban context. In the experimentation they worked in teams to build solar panels, wind turbine, solar cell car recharger an so on. My sustainable city: it is an ideal sustainable city build in the platform Minecraft by different students’ teams, each focusing on a specific aspect of urban sustainability: sustainable buildings, transportation, water and energy saving and so on. From the analysis of pre- and post-activity questionnaires, the students’ final products and the teachers’ and student’s satisfaction surveys, a high engagement level was evidenced for all students participating the experimentation. Best results in the knowledge acquisition tests emerged from students who individually accessed the various paths in virtual world, with respect to the control group who followed the path without interaction. This testifies that the personal engagement helped the students focus to the scientific contents and promoted interest in the topics presented. Following the results obtained in this research, virtual worlds can be recognized as a valid teaching support both in emergency situations like during the pandemic crisis, and also in normal times, as a support to conventional teaching. The idea to approach sustainability topics was a new challenge but the use of VW allowed also to present “laboratory” experiences in the difficult time of the pandemic, allowing students to face problems and find solutions in a social environment. The contents of this thesis are summarized below. In Chapter 1 (Introduction, background and theoretical framework) it is recognized the fundamental role of Education to address sustainability as a catalyst for a broad change in the population. Connections between Agenda 2030, sustainability and geosciences are analyzed, choosing topics to be addressed in this research. The affordance (the latent possibilities for action presented by an artefact, tool or environment”, Stucky, 2009) and the features of virtual world as constructivist platforms to foster collaborative work and active learning are discussed in the context of the theoretical framework about learning approaches mainly used in virtual worlds and useful to address Education for Sustainability. In Chapter 2 (Materials and Methods) the research design, the work flowchart, the list of the activities and types of assessment are described. The research involved 699 students and 75 teachers. Six schools from North, Center and South of Italy participated to the research. Assessment was based on comparisons between pre-activity and post-activity test and/or between experimental and control groups. In Chapter 3 (Results) all the activities carried out in the aforementioned islands are described in details, each in a specific section. The chapter includes an overview of the learning scenario, the tasks assigned to the students, the learning setting and the results. The discussion on specific issues of the related activity is reported, leaving the general discussion to Chapter 4. A specific section is devoted to the satisfaction survey of all the activities, grouped together as the questionnaire were identical or similar in all the activities proposed. In Chapter 4, (Discussion) the main results in the frame of the specific literature are discussed and how the research aims have been achieved is explained. In Chapter 5 (Conclusions), the implications of this research and ideas for future works conclude the work. Chapter 6 contains references Chapter 7 reports all the Annexes, which contain questionnaires, detailed tables and instructions for teachers.