Location-based smartphone games in the context of environmental education and education for sustainable development: fostering connectedness to nature with Geogames

Abstract

Geogames are complex location-based games for smartphones and they are part of a critical discussion within the community of environmental education. The aim of the study is to asses if smartphone games are suitable to foster connectedness to nature and if there are differences between a complex Geogame and a less-demanding treasure hunt. For this purpose, two established scales are used in a pre-post-test-design: the inclusion of nature in self (INS) and the disposition to connect to nature (DCN). Furthermore, the game-related enjoyment was controlled. The results reveal a significant increase of the INS for both game formats, with the strongest effect for the former more nature distant subjects. The DCN-scale shows a similar tendency but not a significant gain. Between the game formats, no significant difference is detectable. So, the main effect seems to be the location-based activity in nature guided by smartphones, not the complexity of a Geogame.

Keywords:

• Connectedness to nature
• game-based learning
• educational technology
• environmental education
• education for sustainable development

Acknowledgments

The BioDiv2Go-project is based on a collaboration of Prof. Dr. Armin Lude (project leader with Prof. Schaal, Ludwigsburg, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Christoph Schlieder (University of Bamberg, Germany) and the authors appreciate working together fruitfully! A special thank goes to the whole BioDiv2Go-team and to all participants of the study! The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and funding. The authors also thank Alexandra Kibbe, University Magdeburg, for supporting us analysing the DCN scale with ConQuest and interpreting our results. Further, we want to thank Hannelore Rundell for reviewing our English language.