Serious Game Design to Promote Energy Literacy Among Younger Children

Today's children are tomorrow's home owners and policymakers. Engaging children with energy literacy can help equip them with the knowledge, skills and environmentally sustainable attitudes needed in later life. This paper discusses the development of a serious game called Power Pets designed to help children understand where energy comes from, how to save energy, and its connection to the environment. In the game, children adopt a digital pet that they care for by feeding it saved energy accumulated during gameplay as they complete energy saving tasks. In one of the few qualitative studies involving children to date, we investigated the potential of Power Pets to increase engagement with energy literacy with a specific age group between the ages of 5 and 9. Our findings suggest Power Pets provided preliminary indications for improvements in children's understanding of energy saving and the link between energy saving and the environment, both at a cognitive and affective level, however usability and the steep developmental curve in this age group are key considerations.