Learning sustainability

Abstract

Eco-feedback technology is a growing area of interest in interaction design research. From smart meters to ambient feedback displays, well-designed technology has the potential to help families cut costs, reduce waste, and increase environmental sustainability. In this paper, we reflect on this trend and pose two interrelated design challenges that we believe are important for the development and evaluation of next-generation eco-feedback technology. First, how can we design technology to encourage entire families, children as well as adults, to become meaningful and active participants in the management of household resource consumption? And second, how can we design interactive systems to engage families in inquiry-based learning around concepts of consumption and sustainability?

Fight the Power! Games, Thermostats, and the Energy Patriarchy

“…In this project, we build on a tradition of research on the use of games (not just gamification) to foster engagement with environmental issues (Antle et al, 2014;Bell-Gawne et al, 2013;Lee et al, 2012;Horn et al, 2016;Horn et al, 2014). In these projects, games create a playful alternative reality in which family members can take on different roles and new responsibilities.…”

Envirofy your Shop: Development of a Real-time Tool to Support Eco-friendly Food Purchases Online

“…Eco-feedback is a promising means of providing education tailored to users' own context and choices [23,69,79]. HCI researchers have largely focused on providing eco-feedback on household energy [40,60,99] and water use [24]. When applied to food consumption, these have addressed only one dimension of their environmental impact (e.g.…”