Talking with Kids About Climate Change

Many people want to make a difference when it comes to climate change. But what can one person do? Without a way to make sense of the complexity, it’s easy to feel disempowered and shut down. Other people think the best thing to do is “wait & see”. They assume from climate change can be fixed quickly.

But, if you know how a bathtub works, you know better.

We (Toggle Labs and School Fab Lab) developed THINK LIKE A BATHTUB, a fun, interactive AR App designed as a hands-on educational tool to engage students in one of four key shapes of climate change — a bathtub. 

Using the app, the students first engage in thought experiments around our current rates of global warming pollution, e.g., humans are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at about twice the rate that natural processes are removing them. Students are then able to use the app to demonstrate their understanding with their peers and adults.

The app can be used for both independent learning and in a classroom setting and can be seamlessly integrated into the curriculum and used as a form of assessment. 

The AR app is currently being piloted by 8th-grade science teachers with their students in the Philadelphia public schools.  To increase engagement with the THINK LIKE A BATHTUB content, we are looking to develop a CHROME BOOK-accessible version of app.  

DOWNLOAD THE FREE APP HERE: DOWNLOAD THE FREE APP here:  https://apps.apple.com/us/app/toggle-lab-ar/id1607835792.

Related tools include a 3-minute video, hands-on activities, and a large group experiential game. See: https://togglelab.com/thinklikeabathtub/?

For related research see:
“Bathtub Dynamics” http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Bathtub.pdf
“Understanding Public Complacency About Climate Change.” https://scripts.mit.edu/~jsterman/docs/Sterman-2007-UnderstandingPublicComplacency.pdf
This app is developed and supported by School Fab Lab

We will use the $6K raised to pay a team of developers to convert the THINK LIKE A BATHTUB augmented reality app into a CHROME-ACCESSIBLE animation-for-understanding-and-action for use by middle-school science students.  

Climate change impacts us all but it will disproportionately impact children and youth and young adults who have to attempt to mitigate the impacts.  We are passionate about the creation of age-appropriate immersive mixed reality education applications, videos, games, and web content that help kids (and the adults in their lives) to lean into complexity, to see it as a guide rather than the enemy.  We also want young people to see how a physical analog – a carbon bathtub can give a common focus and mobilize coordinated actions among diverse stakeholders at different levels of scale – in a classroom, community, city, state, or country.

To learn more about the THINK LIKE A BATHTUB movement, watch this 3-minute youth-narrated video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WAMnt8thGs