Exploring the Impact of Gamified Role-Playing on Climate Change Knowledge and Nature Relatedness: Evidence from an Online Undergraduate Course on Environmental Health

In an online environmental health course, undergraduate students worked in teams of five and were immersed in a team-based climate change case study set in the Amazon rainforest. Each student was assigned a character role—a logger, a farmer, a conservation biologist, an environmental activist, and a policymaker. We aimed to understand whether student character assignments influenced their climate change knowledge, environmental concern, and connection to nature. Regression models were generated to test for differences in the outcome variables between characters at pre- and post-test. We observed higher gains in the nature relatedness scores for students assigned the logger role. After controlling for previous climate change knowledge, first-generation college students had lower climate change knowledge at the end of the course compared to non-first-generation students, but low-income students had higher climate change knowledge at the end of the course compared to non-low-income students. Environmental concern had no change over the term; scores were high during the pre- and post-survey for all students. There may be potential to develop a connection to nature by assigning students to play specific characters. Also, despite ongoing work to support first-generation college students, there remain opportunities to develop academic support programs for these students.