Co-creators of interactive resources for climate change literacy
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Dr Sarah Otanga, FAR-LeaF II Research Fellow, Future Africa | Maseno University, Kenya
To address the urgent global problem posed by climate change, climate change education (CCE) is a crucial tool. CCE empowers individuals to understand and proactively respond to the impacts of climate change. Although CCE is often framed as simply presenting the right knowledge to learners, simply knowing about climate change does not translate into understanding it or knowing how to respond to it. If CCE is to be meaningful, learners need opportunities not only to consume information but also to participate in creating it. Participation enables learners to contribute to climate literacy. Therefore, this calls for a shift from designing educational resources for learners and teachers to designing educational resources with learners and teachers. This could be done through a participatory process in which learners contribute their experiences and perspectives, teachers contribute their pedagogical knowledge and understanding of classroom realities, and researchers contribute their technical expertise.
Learners know about climate change in ways that textbooks do not explain
Children may not always understand scientific language such as ‘carbon emissions’ or ‘climate adaptation’, but they experience the consequences of climate change in their communities. For instance, they may have experienced the effects of floods, such as road destruction, or extremely hot or cold weather. Thus, they should not be regarded simply as recipients of knowledge about climate change. They can contribute ideas about the stories, games and examples that make learning meaningful to them. For instance, instead of developing a generic story about flooding, learners could describe what happens in their communities during heavy rain. Their experiences could inform the story's characters and storyline. For instance, an interactive story might ask learners to describe what they would do during heavy rain and explain safe and unsafe practices. This makes them active contributors to knowledge. It also makes the resources contextually relevant.
Teachers bring the technology expertise
Teachers also play an important role in resource development and should therefore be involved from the earliest stages. They have an understanding of the learners, the curriculum requirements and the practical realities of the classroom. They can help determine the level of language suitable for learners at a particular stage, the concepts that are difficult for learners, locally relevant examples, and pedagogically appropriate forms of interaction. Apart from reviewing the final resource, they could be involved in identifying learning needs, generating ideas, designing resources, testing prototypes and evaluating the final resource. Teachers ensure that interactivity in a resource serves a clear learning purpose.
Co-design can produce better resources
In a co-design process, learners, teachers, researchers, and other relevant stakeholders, such as curriculum specialists and instructional designers, work together to design, test, and refine resources. This process might begin with teachers and learners having conversations with researchers to identify important climate issues. This could be followed by workshops in which teachers and learners generate ideas for resources such as interactive stories, games, and animations. Initial prototypes can then be developed and tested with learners in real classroom settings. During testing, learners may reveal issues that could have been overlooked during the development phase. For instance, a button may be difficult to find, making it difficult for learners to navigate the resource. Teachers may reveal issues with curriculum alignment. Based on the reviews, the resource can be revised and tested again.
Interactivity should serve a pedagogical purpose
Interactivity without a pedagogical purpose becomes entertainment and does not produce meaningful learning. It should not be assumed that every digital resource is interactive because it has animations, videos or games. A good resource for promoting climate change literacy needs to encourage learners to think and act, not merely to click. They should provide experiences that promote learners’ higher-order thinking, for instance, by requiring them to solve problems or be able to explain their decisions.
Resources should be contextualised to the local context
Climate change is experienced differently across communities. This is another reason why learners and teachers should be involved in developing these resources. A resource developed without local participation may present climate change as a distant problem. In Kenya, for instance, a learner in the western region is more likely to be affected by flooding and water pollution, while a learner from Northern Kenya may be more familiar with drought. Localisation goes beyond adapting a resource to a learner's local language. It involves incorporating local environments, experiences and practices.
From users to partners
The future of climate change education should not focus on how much content learners can access. The question should be whether the content is meaningful, locally relevant, pedagogically sound and capable of helping learners respond to environmental change. To achieve this, learners should not merely be viewed as consumers of information, and teachers should not be viewed solely as implementers of resources. Both should be treated as partners in the design process. The interactive resources should reflect learners’ realities and serve as tools for developing climate agency. Teachers contribute their pedagogical expertise; learners contribute their lived experiences, and researchers and developers contribute the design and technical expertise.
To this end, the most effective interactive resources for climate change literacy may not be those developed by experts far from the classroom, but those created together with learners who will use them and teachers who will teach with them.
Dr Sarah Otanga from Maseno University, Kenya, is a Future Africa Research Leadership Fellow in the FAR-LeaF II programme, which focuses on future-looking science leadership and human capital development that aligns with the Carnegie Corporation’s interest in skills development, research, and retention for early-career researchers. Read more about her research project here: https://www.scienceblog.africa/fellows/dr-sarah-otanga
