Episode 104 Clayton Whittle on Environmentalism and Games
Episode 104 Clayton Whittle on Environmentalism and Games
Episode Summary:
In this podcast episode, host Dave Eng interviews Clayton Whittle, a researcher, educator, and environmentalist. Clayton's work centers around using game design to educate and motivate action in the realm of environmental education. He discusses his role as a past resident fellow at Pennsylvania State University, focusing on developing game design frameworks for environmental education. He emphasizes the importance of moving beyond designing for behavior and towards empowering informed and motivated action. Clayton highlights the potential of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in environmental education. VR can create visceral experiences for policymakers, while AR can engage players in real-world based play that drives awareness and action. The episode underscores the value of technology in fostering environmental consciousness and activism.
Dr. Clayton Whittle
he/him/his
Environmental Education Specialist, Serious Games Design Researcher
Sustainable Forestry Initiative
Clayton Whittle is lifelong gamer, educator, environmentalist, and researcher. Over his career he has been a professor, a design researcher, and a game designer. His passion for each has led him down a path pursuing effective game designs for education and environmental activism and action. His work as a resident fellow at Pennsylvania State University has focused on the development of game design frameworks founded in proven serious game design theory, environmental psychology, and modern learning practice. Clayton is the lead researcher and author of the IGDA's Environmental Game Design Patterns framework of the IGDA Climate SIG.
(Twitter): https://twitter.com/clayton_whittle
(LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/claytonwhittle/
(Research Gate): https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Clayton-Whittle
(Other): https://rpggeek.com/rpgdesigner/101767/clayton-whittle
Dave Eng:
Hi, and welcome to Experience Points by University XP. On Experience Points, we explore different ways we can learn from games. I'm your host, Dave Eng, from Games-Based Learning by University XP. Find out more by going to www.universityxp.com. On today's episode, we'll learn from Clayton Whittle. Clayton is a lifelong gamer, educator, environmentalist, and researcher. He's a professional designer and researcher who is passionate about effective game designs for both education and the environment. He currently serves as the lead researcher for the International Game Developers Association, IGDA's Environmental Game Design Patterns Framework. He's also the manager of online learning at Project Learning Tree. Clayton, welcome to the show.
Clayton Whittle:
Hey, Dave, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Dave Eng:
You got it. So Clayton, you have a really interesting background and that's where I want to start out at the very beginning here. So, I want to first congratulate you on finishing your doctoral program at Pennsylvania State University.
Clayton Whittle:
Thank you.
Dave Eng:
But this question originally was targeted about your resident fellowship there, so at the very top of this, I want to talk about this because I think this is really interesting. Can you tell us more about your role as a past resident fellow at Pennsylvania State University, and how your work focuses on developing game design frameworks for environmental education? Specifically, I'd like to learn more about, what are some key principles or theories that inform your approach?
Clayton Whittle:
I can absolutely talk through that, I think. So, my work there at Pennsylvania State University was very much focused in trying to develop frameworks for understanding how people can learn about the environment and learn through gaming, specifically around the environment and climate psychology. And so, my work there revolved primarily around not just the experimental science, but how we can bring that work into the real world because I think one of the things that was most important to me at the start of that fellowship, and took itself through my dissertation, was we can have all the theories and all the science we want, but at the end of the day, if it doesn't work in a game design studio, like if XBOX Studios isn't going to adopt it, then what's the real change we're producing? So, my work really focused on identifying design patterns that were adoptable for major studios, and that could help people who wanted to make games that contributed to mitigating the climate crisis, help them make those games in a way that were effective without undermining what they were already doing.
So that was the goal. I think that's where I started, and where it took me was to a lot of places, I ended up getting, I guess, my PhD's technically in learning and technology, but I feel like I also did a little... There's some climate psychology in there, there's some design theory in there. But at the end of the day, when people ask me what I think is the key theory is that people need to feel to act like an environmentally responsible citizen or to do, let's just say do in pro-environment. To do that, you need to know what you need to know. You need to have the knowledge, you need to feel empowered to... And we call it self-efficacy or even perceived self-efficacy, which is like someone needs to see themselves as powerful and you need to have the right attitude, which is always the sticky point, I think, for designers and educators because when people hear you need to have the right attitude, I think they hear me saying, "I'm out to change people's attitudes."
And what I would say to that is that the right attitude is often more about understanding your own space and understanding your own relation to the environment. And I don't want to convince anyone to be pro-environmental, I'd never want to do that. I think that happens naturally when people have the right exposure, but the right attitude is more about, in my mind, seeing how valuable nature is because you're out there experiencing it and then realizing, "Man, I can and should protect this because it's beautiful, and if I don't, it's going to die, and that would suck," is the very high academic version.
Dave Eng:
Clayton, you talked a little bit about this before, specifically commercial game entities and successful frameworks. I don't want to jump into the second question yet, but are there any commercially successful frameworks for commercial games that you feel that educational games or serious games should try to emulate or at least try to replicate?
Clayton Whittle:
Man, this is a sticky point because I feel like you're taking me down a path of tooting my own horn here, but...
Dave Eng:
That's fine, we want to hear it.
Clayton Whittle:
There we go, so that was a gap when I started my research. I felt that was a gap, and there are people working in that space now. There are a lot of people with parallel thinking to what I had. So I'm not like, "I'm the only one who's doing this." Say [Dr. Oriargi] is doing this, and there are some others, and I don't want to get too deep into literature review, but my work that I worked alongside the International Game Developers Association with their climate special interest group, we started developing a framework that was for this because we felt there wasn't one that was a plug and play thing that a designer could pick up and start using today. And I think you can see that desire reflected in the document you mentioned earlier, which was the Environmental Game Design Playbook, which the IGDA published. I want to say March 2022, I think, sometime in Q1, Q2, and that to my knowledge is the only fully developed framework.
There are others, like I said, [Dr. Oriargi] is working on one that's very... It's got a lot of promise and a lot of potential, but I think their team is a lot earlier in the process and didn't have the very unfair advantage of working with the IGDA, which gave us access to dozens upon dozens of game designers and developers and professionals within game studios that could lend their voice and their expertise to developing that framework, and that gave us a huge advantage in getting that done.
I think it is, however, a space in the next few years, you're going to see more and more people working towards that because there's more and more momentum within the corporate design space to include scientifically driven or at least design driven and sound evidence-based practice for environmental education or environmental messaging evidenced by things like the Green Game Jam or any other number of projects like that, Ubisoft's Positive Play or any of those projects like that, or that are really focusing on evidence-driven messaging and evidence-driven education. So, I think you'll see more pop up as we go. But again, I'm trying not to toot my own horn, but I do think EGDP is the only one that's currently a fully developed framework that's just publicly available.
Dave Eng:
And to be honest, I feel like frameworks like that should be more publicly available and transparent, particularly for educators and designers that want to get into this space. While you were speaking, Clayton, I was looking up some references, but I remember listening to a talk from Shigeru Miyamoto who was the designer of Legend of Zelda, talking about how his original inspiration and framework for the game and subsequent iterations of it was that playing in the forest as a kid and being able to explore nature and its expansive bounty and the prospect and the opportunity of being able to just explore this wide and open realm. And one of the games I'm actually playing right now, I don't know if you've played it or if any of the listeners have played it before, but Alba's: A Wildlife Adventure I've been playing on Steam is about the girl Alba and exploring the different flora and fauna on this island in order to achieve experience.
And it's like procedural adventure, but I feel both of those aspects are incorporated into commercial games right now that we could potentially see in serious games, particularly applied for environmental education. And that leads me actually into my second question here, Clayton, which is I wanted to talk about educational game motivation and specifically, could you tell us more about how you ensure that the games you design not only educate, but also engage and motivate players to take real world actions in support of environmental causes. And then a follow up, are there any specific strategies or techniques that you employ?
Clayton Whittle:
So, actually first I want to... Before we get into it, I really just want to say, I'm glad you're enjoying Alba. I really like that. That's such a wonderful game and it ties in so well with this question too because... I think it's wonderful because it's just really enjoyable, it's fun and engaging, immersing, and also it really works on a theoretical or a technical standpoint for how we like to design environmental games. It's just a perfect evidence point for how absolutely brilliant Jennifer Astaire and that whole Ustwo Games team, just absolutely amazing. So, I can't say enough positive things about them. Obviously, I really like them. So, how do we really encourage action through games and motivate action through games? So, I think I'll pull back a step before I go forward. It's something I really like to tell teams when I work with them is we want to first reframe the conversation around action rather than behavior.
And I know that you know this, and some of the people out there listening probably do as well, but I think it's a thing that in the environmental space really needs to be called out because people traditionally want to design for behavior. And I can teach my dog a behavior, I give it a treat, it does the thing I want. And a video game can do that, we know we can design in a way to encourage a behavior, but action is different. Action requires a desired outcome achieved by taking an informed and formed behavior by a motivated individual. And I think I encourage people looking to design for environmental education or environmental motivation to really take that perspective of we want the individual to be informed, we want them to be internally and intrinsically motivated. They have to want it to happen, not just taking an action that we're telling them, "Go do this specific thing."
And we also have to provide them with the sort of systematic knowledge, and I think that's where a lot of this starts for me, is that games are this incredibly powerful learning resource. And I know you talk about this a lot in your podcast, so I don't want to just harp on this point, but when we use games to teach what I call declarative or awareness knowledge of you're aware of environmental topics, I can declare that yes, climate change is happening. I know X, Y, Z scientific data, I can tell you its impact on the forest.
Cool, that's exciting stuff, but games are so much more powerful, and as a lot of your guests and you yourself have spoken about, the ability of games to teach systematic knowledge, being able to interact with the system, get the feedback from the game to see how your actions interact with that system and how your actions can manipulate that system, that's where we can help people understand their role in an incredibly complex, sticky problem that is climate change and environmental education. Even something as scientifically simple as the carbon sinkings, like the carbon cycle where we produce X amount of carbon and forests and water, et cetera, can only sink so much of that.
And so if we have too much, we create carbon pollution, but even something as simple as that is a complex system and games allow us to interact with that in a way that can illustrate our role in that, that no textbook could ever do and can contextualize that narratively in a way that no textbook can ever do. And so when I talk about strategies or techniques, I think the top level takeaway is whatever game you're designing is going to be different, but the ubiquitous takeaway that everyone can learn from is that systematic knowledge component is so key. And that narrative connection to the natural world that you were just talking about with Alba is the other really critical thing that we want. We want to foster what we call a connection to nature is what environmental education sciences call it, is the connection to nature.
And when people feel connected, when they feel empathetic, when they feel like they're experiencing nature, even in a virtual setting like you're talking about with Alba, is people start to feel a little bit more protective of nature and a little bit more motivated to get out there and take action. And man, I don't want to ramble. I kind of get on the topic... You ask a PhD about their research area, they're going to give you a longer response than you're looking for, but I do want to end with this one final point on action, and that's that at the end of the day, empowering people to take the actions that are within their power and that makes sense for them, where they live, and what resources they have, that's the most important thing. And I tell design teams time and time again, try to meet your players where they are because I can say, "Go buy an electric car, boom, reduce your carbon footprint."
Great, if you've got $50,000 sitting around, that's a wonderful choice. That doesn't work for everybody, and your player is going to have an environment and a social sphere that is important to them and meeting them where they can make a difference and helping them to be empowered agents within their sphere of influence, so that they can see their actions is such a critical aspect of motivating people to move forward and take more impactful actions. And that's something climate psychologists call spillover effect, which is like we can motivate someone to do something little, and then the more they succeed at that, the more they see the impact of that, the more likely they are to move forward and take more challenging tasks to hand and take more ambitious projects on. And so, that's my message to game designers is meet them where they are and motivate them in their own space rather than assigning them tasks that you think are important.
Dave Eng:
Great. Thank you, Clayton. I appreciate the really comprehensive response. One of the things I was thinking about when you were discussing this was I recently remember listening to it was either a Planet Money or The Indicator episode. Do you happen to listen to any of those two podcasts?
Clayton Whittle:
I do not. I think I've heard Planet Money once or twice, but it's been a long time.
Dave Eng:
There was this really interesting episode. Both shows are focused on economics, specifically behavioral economics, but there was a show specifically on the behavioral economics of climate change and specifically the educational impact. And so, that they addressed it in this particular experiments that they covered was that the difference, like you indicated, between motivation and action in that it challenged individual participants to one, not share declarative information about climate change, but rather to share a feedback loop and a cycle, meaning that they would begin the "game" by making a bet on say, how many forest fires in this year, or how many instances of flash flooding or other climate change related environmental effects.
And then they would make a bet, and if they were correct, they would get a payout, usually two to one, or if they were incorrect, they would lose that bet. And oftentimes this served as a great feedback loop for someone that would say, "There's only about 15 or 20 forest fires in the US every year," and then when they get the actual statistic, it was like, "No, there are over 470 reported forest fires and that number is increasing every year because of X, Y, and Z." It was part of that critical feedback loop, and I think that money aside, this is a way for someone to really test their assumptions versus the actual effect. So, I'm probably going to link the episode in the show notes, but if you haven't listened to it before, Clayton, I highly suggest it. It was a great episode.
Clayton Whittle:
I will. So as I finish my PhD, I'm getting really interested in educational podcasts, like the kind of podcasts that aren't just purely turn my brain off because I've got a little more brain space for it.
Dave Eng:
All right. Thank you, Clayton. So, I'm going to move into the last question here, and I specifically want to talk about your background and expertise in instructional technology. So specifically I'd like to know, how do you see technology evolving in the field of education and environmental activism? And specifically, what emerging technologies or trends do you find most promising for creating a positive impact in these areas?
Clayton Whittle:
So, I think within the space of games, I think there are two major technologies that are going to really take us to the next level. And I think that the how is probably... I think the what is not all that surprising, but I think the how is, in at least my perspective, I think VR and then separately AR have potential to do some really important work. And I'll start with the VR. Virtual reality, I think we're realizing is... As it's becoming more approachable and more aesthetically pleasing, people are finding new uses for it. I do not think one of those uses is mass-produced VR for games-based education. For environmental impact, I don't think that's a viable option because it just self-selects out so many of the people who can't afford that technology, but I think what it does do, and Arsht Rockefeller Foundation in their games-based learning initiative right now is working with a few individuals. That'd be Trevin York, Arnaud... I'm going to screw up his last name, Fayolle, how awful.
I know him personally, I've screwed up his last name, from Ubisoft Games, and a good amount of others from the Arsht Rockefeller Games-Based Learning team that's all about environmental education games, and their initiative that they're working on right now, which I think is a brilliant use of the technology is designing very visceral, very high end VR experiences, but not for mass production, aimed at policy makers, I believe, and I might be misunderstanding this because I only really met with him one time at at Game DEFCON last year, or earlier this year, but they're making VR for policy makers or decision makers, essentially, so that the smaller number of people playing can get a really personal connection to what they were demoing at GDC was seeing the direct impacts of rising water levels, I believe in Miami, and you put on the VR headset and you're experiencing the middle of a hurricane and you're chest deep in water just trying to get to your car.
And it's a really visceral, jarring experience. And I think there's a lot of negative visualization potential there in reaching people who have and making it a tool in the playbook of people who have to convince the people who make the big decisions in our world because we have to face the facts that not everyone has the decision, the power to make the major policy decisions unfortunately. And so, I think VR has a lot of potential there, and I think the more we push that, the better. And I think the other way more on the mass player facing side of things, I think AR is moving to a place where we are more and more designing in a way that we can empower real change and social networking games and AR games are not a new thing, but I think we're starting to understand how they work with climate and environmental education better.
And I'm thinking specifically of... Oh gosh, my brain has just turned off. So, the transformational play framework is probably one of the most cited frameworks of how educational games work. And I could tell you everything about it except for the author suddenly. I could tell you which university he's currently teaching at, but not his name, Sasha Barab, there we go, Sasha Barab, there we go. His transformational play that he did in the early 2000s, the idea is that the game world is this place where the player can experiment and the game world is something that the player can change. And when the world transforms, then the player transforms, e.g. learns, and I think we're starting to see how AR can be applied to expand on that transformational play framework in envisioning virtual worlds within the game that reflect the physical world and its environmental health and using player action to report real world changes or actions within the real world, within the game, so that the game world continues to update and reflect and then drive player behavior as the players react to the changing game world and therefore the changing real world.
And I think as our understanding of how players self-motivate in AR games like that and how we can create A, safe, and B, supportive and effective and impactful... I said B, and then named three things. The more we can create safe, impactful, and supportive, and effective spaces that are AR driven, I think we'll start seeing some very real impact projects that use AR or real world based play to make very real changes in the environment, at least on a local level, which is what I think is honestly where we see our importance because what drives people to care is seeing the impact on your day-to-day.
Dave Eng:
Thank you, Clayton. I appreciate that. So whether you're focusing on AR or VR, I think that this type of feedback loop that exists for individuals and players is incredibly important, not only to share didactic knowledge and information about the effects of the environment and climate change, but to actually demonstrate its effects. One of the pieces of media that comes to mind, I believe it was a YouTube video produced at least a year ago now, it was this fake tourist trap set up in Florida where they sold all sorts of kitschy items like mugs and t-shirts and magnets and bumper stickers, but it was actually like a living demonstration because when people came into the store, it was set up so that a flash flood would occur and the store would be flooded with up to six inches of standing water while people were in the store.
Of course, there were places where people could stand to get out of the water, but the reason that the store existed was to show people the effects of changing weather, changing climate, and how flash flooding could have an effect on homes, stores, and everything else. And I think that experiment alone is something that's incredibly visceral because you can just talk about a flash flood, you can talk about inches of water, but unless you've actually experienced a flash flood firsthand, I don't think a lot of people would really know its impactful effect overall in the environment. Clayton, have you seen this video before?
Clayton Whittle:
I have not, but I am going to go watch it now. That's a really cool project.
Dave Eng:
Well, I'll link it out in show notes and I'll also send it to you afterwards.
Clayton Whittle:
I'm very excited.
Dave Eng:
All right, so Clayton, thanks for joining us today. Where can people go to find out more about you?
Clayton Whittle:
Oh, wow. I'm not a big social media guy. You can find me on LinkedIn. You just look for Clayton Whittle, but I honestly if I have one place to point people, if you're interested in games and environment, the IGDA Climate SIG Discord, and if you google IGDA Climate SIG, S-I-G, you'll find a website that'll direct you to their Discord, and it's a beautiful space, and that's where you'll find me, honestly. It's just a wonderful space with people who are all striving through either the industry or academia to achieve the sort of shared mission of empowering environmental agency through games.
Dave Eng:
All right, I'll make sure that I include that link directly in the show notes. So thank you, Clayton, for joining us. I appreciate it.
Clayton Whittle:
Thank you so much, David. It was great being here. It was good to talk to you too.
Dave Eng:
Likewise. I hope you found this episode useful. If you'd like to learn more, then a great place to start is with my free course on gamification. You can sign up for it at www.universityxp.com/gamification. You can also get a full transcript of this episode, including links to references in a description or show notes. Thanks for joining us. Again, I'm your host, Dave Eng from Games-Based Learning by University XP. On Experience Points, we explore different ways we can learn from games. If you liked this episode, please consider commenting, sharing and subscribing. Subscribing is absolutely free and ensures that you'll get the next episode of Experience Points delivered directly to you. I'd also love it if you took some time to rate the show. I live to lift others with learning. So if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. Also, make sure to visit University XP online at www.universityxp.com University XP is also on Twitter at @University_XP and on Facebook and LinkedIn as University XP. Also, feel free to email me any time. My email address is dave@universityxp.com. Game on!
Cite this Episode
Eng, D. (Host). (2024, January 28). Clayton Whittle on Environmentalism and Games (No. 104) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/104
Internal Ref: UXP8F6NESD91
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Whittle, C., York, T., Escuadra, P.A., Shonkwiler, G., Bille, H., Fayolle, A., McGregor, B., Hayes, S., Knight, F., Wills, A., Chang, A., & Fernández Galeote, D. (2022). The Environmental Game Design Playbook (Presented by the IGDA Climate Special Interest Group). International Game Developers Association. https://igda.org/resources-archive/environmental-game-design-playbook-presented-by-igda-climate-special-interest-group-alpha-release/