CZ Investigator: A Serious Game to Teach The Concept of Critical Zone

Abstract:

The Critical Zone (CZ) plays a pivotal role in the food-energy-water nexus. However, due to the complex nature of this concept, it is not well understood by society. Challenges range from examining the invisible, i.e. what happens under the ground, to understanding complex relations between the involved components of CZ (i.e., lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere). CZ education is conventionally aimed towards college-level courses, and for students who are intrinsically motivated to learn about it. To bring the CZ education to a broader audience, we have developed a serious immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) game called CZ Investigator (CZi). CZi enables learners to have an embodied, interactive, and concrete experience about the CZ, and how natural and human processes affect it. Game users explore a virtual natural environment, at the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory in Pennsylvania, USA, and experience virtually, through direct interaction, the effect of natural actions such as rain as well as human ones such as deforestation on the flow and storage of water (i.e. the hydrosphere component) in the CZ. CZi is designed using educational theories to increase learning interest, and accurately recall CZ-related scientific theories and definitions of the hydrosphere to a broad range of users. The game is designed based on social psychology research and the role of curiosity in shaping human behavior. By experiencing the interactions between environmental systems in the CZ, the game fosters greater curiosity by learners which ultimately motivates them to seek information and become more engaged in local, national, and international policy debates surrounding the environment and sustainable human interactions with the food, energy, water (FEW) nexus. Furthermore, self-determination theory also guides the activities and affordances of the game. This theory focuses on the idea that certain strategies or perceptions of one's environment can better facilitate intrinsic, self-guided behavior. As such, the goal of the interactive experiences embedded in the game is to help individuals gain a sense of autonomy and competence that translates into more positive and motivational associations with the concept of the CZ.