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Evaluating the usability of an interactive map activity for climate change education

Published: 20 June 2011 Publication History

Abstract

We report the results of usability testing on a professional modeling tool designed to support students' learning about climate change impacts. Using a questionnaire and test responses as data sources, we evaluated the efficacy of an interactive map activity that was completed by 84 middle school students. An analysis of the data showed that students had difficulties manipulating simple data overlays when answering questions about tree distributions with the model. The findings from this study have implications for researchers who wish to design interactive map-based activities for science education, and for technology developers seeking to improve the usability of complex learning environments for middle school students.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)The role of CCI in supporting children’s engagement with environmental sustainability at a time of climate crisisInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10060538(100605)Online publication date: Dec-2023
  • (2018)A Smart Learning Environment for Environmental EducationChallenges and Solutions in Smart Learning10.1007/978-981-10-8743-1_2(13-16)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2018

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      IDC '11: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
      June 2011
      275 pages
      ISBN:9781450307512
      DOI:10.1145/1999030
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 20 June 2011

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      Author Tags

      1. climate change education
      2. inquiry learning
      3. predictive species distribution modeling
      4. usability

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      • (2023)The role of CCI in supporting children’s engagement with environmental sustainability at a time of climate crisisInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10060538(100605)Online publication date: Dec-2023
      • (2018)A Smart Learning Environment for Environmental EducationChallenges and Solutions in Smart Learning10.1007/978-981-10-8743-1_2(13-16)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2018

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