Virtual reality as a climate science teaching tool

We describe the results of a series of training sessions, resulting from a partnership between Educational Service District 123 (an educational support agency) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in which 10 high school science teachers were introduced to virtual reality as a potential teaching tool to deepen the curriculum of climate science at the secondary level. We designed a virtual reality game in which students build a society of 9 tiles that include general categories of food, energy, water, population, and natural land. Students are required to include enough energy, food, and water to support the population. The choices that they make reflect how much they can optimize social costs/benefits such as air/water quality, wealth, number of people that can be supported, and long-term climate change. The game allows students to explore how decisions about the future are impacted by values and that there are tradeoffs and costs—the game was designed to be deliberately difficult to maximize all values. Teachers used iterations of the game in their climate science classroom learning experiences with students, who then provided feedback on the game experience and its usefulness in deepening their learning around climate science.