Abstract

Climate change is a global issue with impacts that span across ecological, social and economic systems. Climate change literacy and engagement are crucial in implementing successful adaptation and mitigation strategies to overcome the negative impacts of climate change. Gamification is one communication and educational approach that can be used to increase both literacy and engagement. This paper provides a state-of-the-art of climate change gamification research through a systematic literature review. The findings from reviewing 14 primary studies show that climate change gamification is a research area that deserves more attention from researchers as there is a limited number of studies addressing this important issue. More quantitative studies as well as longitudinal studies are sought, as they provide a higher strength of evidence of how gamification can enhance engagement. Only two controlled experiments were identified, while majority of studies relied on qualitative and cases study approaches. Gamification applications covered all functions of climate change engagement, namely delivering information, raising ethical awareness, and eliciting decisionmaking and behavioral changing through simulation. All studies, except two, showed successful application of gamification approach to climate change communication. Our literature review indicates also that more studies are necessary to advance the research area and we provide a research agenda with specific directions to follow.