Practical impact of school-age children using digital games to learn environmental education

¹ Department of Education Industry and Digital Media, National Taitung University, No. 684, Section 1, Chunghua Road, 95002 Taitung, Taiwan
² Department of Creative Integrated Design, I-Shou University, No.8, Yida Rd., Jiaosu Village Yanchao District, 82445 Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

^* Corresponding author: idit007@gmail.com

Abstract

This electronic document is a “live” template and already defines the components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] in its style sheet. With the advancement of technology, the publicity of environmental protection decrees presents the different types from school education to the multiple digital media, such as social media, animation, films or mobile games, let people to learn the correct knowledge about environmental protection. Middle and senior grade students are learning social normal to build self-awareness, and interesting in games. Using participatory observation method to explore the changes of environmental protection awareness and behavior practices in 12 middle and senior children before and after playing two games. The study found that through mobile game education, children have an improvement rate of about 60% in the implementation of environmental awareness knowledge and practice. The cute characters are more attracted. For middle grade children, they prefer action types of games because the experience of fighting monsters is exciting. Comparing to them, senior grade children prefer knowledge types of games because they consider that can learn more new environmental knowledge. In terms of gender, boys prefer action games and girls prefer knowledge games. This research hopes to improve the effectiveness of existing environmental protection publicity, and cultivate children's knowledge, literacy and practical ability of environmental protection through game-based learning, so as to facilitate the sustainable development of environmental education.