Losing the Lake: Simulations to Promote Gains in Student Knowledge and Interest about Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change literacy plays a key role in promoting sound political decisions and promoting sustainable consumption patterns. Based on evidence suggesting that student understanding and interest in climate change is best accomplished through studying local effects, we developed a simulation/game exploring the impact of climate change on the declining water levels in Lake Mead. Because there are few evaluations of educational games using true control groups, this study also presents a randomized field trial evaluating the game. We randomly assigned 119 seventh graders to either a gamebased condition or control condition. Students in the experimental group played Losing the Lake; those in the control group viewed an earth science website. Students also completed pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest measures of their content understanding and interest in issues embodied in the game. We found that playing the game resulted in a significant increase in content knowledge, as measured by a 22-item assessment, especially on items related to household conservation and some basic concepts related to the greenhouse effect. The control group showed no effect. Playing