A Tangible Future: Climate Change Education Using Physical Computing-based Design Provocation

Environmental education about climate change and adaptation strategies do not have reliable behavioural effects due to the topic’s distance from immediate concerns and reliance on understanding negative consequences that are tangibly felt. To show students how climate futures can be made tangible, we designed a curriculum that creates scenarios for building interactions that express climate change concerns or speculatively design for climate futures. The outcomes produced by students included a polar bear affected by air conditioning use at our homes, a game of what buildings to build or avoid to promote environment well-being, a car that turns recycled rubbish into energy, a device that protects a plant from environmental destruction, etc. This work illustrates how physical computing can foster climate change
education by enabling speculative design.

Presenter: RAY LC, Assistant Professor (City University of Hong Kong)

Session type: Paper

Time listed is Singapore time.