Carbon Warrior: A game-based environment to understand Carbon Footprint and its effect on Sustainable living

Abstract

Sources of knowledge about environmental education are bounded to textbooks, documentaries, animated videos, and a few games for school children. However, it was observed that children’s knowledge about Carbon Footprint (CF) and its implications was very limited. To address the gap in the connection of the users with the outcomes of their actions, another mode of awareness through digital games has been used for some time. These games have a simpler means of conveying complex topics in an interactive way which has been employed to teach topics such as sustainability to the users. Existing games help justify most addressed issues in the conventional methods but are still a step behind in making adequate personalized and usable connections with the users which are mainly adults. Carbon Warrior is an interactive application for school children to help users learn about CF and its impact on sustainability. This study has focused on validating the usability of game elements of Carbon Warrior. The users appreciated the elements of the game encouraging the further extension of the work.