Abstract:

Sustainability education calls for ways to engage youth in a meaningful and responsible relationship with nature that might be foreign to generations of city dwellers. Our future on this planet depends on our ability to develop solutions to meet the significant global challenges and develop an awareness of how to further sustainable living.

This paper discusses implementing a pilot study on developing nature awareness through immersive and narrative learning methods conducted in an R&D project in collaboration with schools in Denmark. How can education initiatives be designed to foster a greater sense of nature awareness and further sustainability education across subjects in the Curriculum?

The interdisciplinary interventions across science, literature and arts included mindfulness in nature, live-action role-play, video productions and participating in an Augmented Reality game on eco-systems.

The aim was to provide an immersive learning experience focusing on ecological challenges from a perspective that involves the learners personally, both affectively, bodily and cognitively. Approaches that give them insight and tools to relate to and reflect on their interaction with nature from a narrative and problem-based perspective.

The study included students in grades 4-9 at three different schools. It uses qualitative methods, including video observations, interviews with teachers, and focus groups of learners.

The outcome of the pilot project was the development and testing of a learning design that combined different immersive methods in a novel way that engaged and motivated most of the learners. It is a promising approach that can be further refined and developed by testing it on a larger scale.

Keywords:

Sustainability education, narrative learning, immersive learning, role-play, nature awareness.