Climate4Kids: A Gamified App Teaching about Climate Change

The Climate4Kids paper presents a browser-based, multilingual gamified app designed to teach children aged 6 to 10 about climate change, covering topics such as renewable energy, mobility, the greenhouse effect, soil sealing, and heat insulation. Its central argument is that abstract climate concepts can become accessible to young learners when delivered through storytelling, hands-on experiments, and game mechanics that sustain motivation and encourage transfer of learning into everyday life at home. The authors ground their approach in a long tradition of play-based learning and in conceptual change theory, which holds that new knowledge must be integrated with children's existing ideas.

The app is built on three pillars: picture stories written and drawn by pre-service teachers and pupils, simple at-home experiments requiring no special equipment, and non-digital card and cardboard games. A marmot character named Mani, whose habitat is threatened by rising temperatures, guides users through the content. Gamification elements include a reward system in which correct quiz answers earn digitally planted trees, a planet face that grows happier as the player progresses, and quizzes that require three correct rounds for full credit. The design deliberately targets Bartle's player types, while omitting a high-score board to avoid competitive framing.

The paper's evidence base is largely developmental rather than empirical. It describes a prior research project in which three primary schools implemented lessons built on three core concepts (conservation, energy, and interaction), and it outlines a planned evaluation with pupils and teachers in fall 2022 using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods. No outcome data from the app's classroom use are reported, so claims about its effectiveness remain prospective. Follow-up plans include extending the app to ages 10 to 14, adding circular-economy content, and offering teacher training in five languages.