JultikaUniversity of Oulu repository

Considering the environmental problems that happen globally, environmental education was perceived in this study as an important key to deal with the problems. This study was carried out to support environmental education by exploring persuasive games to raise environmental awareness. Through a design science research (DSR) approach, EcoScout Game was designed as a mobile persuasive game for conveying some existing environmental issues to children. During the DSR, a playtest phase was conducted to evaluate the first level of EcoScout Game that contains persuasion goals to keep the environment clean and to dispose waste correctly. The playtest involved 10 participants age 4 to 6 years that provided various responses. Majority of the participants showed their interests to play the game. When the participants were playing the game, all of them understood that they must keep the environment clean. More than a half of the participants (60%) understood and motivated to follow the waste disposal rules. Several improvements for the game are proposed, especially to help children who are still not able to read textual labels and descriptions in the game. Further development and research are required to advance the game and to confirm its effectiveness in persuading children. However, this study showed a possibility to use persuasive games for raising environmental awareness among children in the context of environmental education. Finally, this study demonstrated a potential to apply DSR in persuasive game design.