Global Health: Using Virtual Reality for Building Climate Change Awareness

11.03.2025, Diplomarbeiten, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten

The Human-Centered Computing and Extended Reality Lab of the Professorship for Machine Intelligence in Orthopedics seeks applicants for Bachelor/Master Thesis for the Summer Semester 2025.

Overview

Virtual reality (VR) is an effective tool for experiencing the environmental, economic, and social implications of each individual’s actions on a spatial and temporal scale [6]. It is increasingly utilized for sustainable development education to promote social change through both individual and collective levels [2]. As sustainable development goal number 13 (https://sdgs.un.org/goals), action for climate protection must be addressed, to which each individual can contribute in their everyday life [9]. However, understanding the complex contextual relationships can be challenging. To enhance action competence and empower a sense of climate responsibility [10], gamification [7], and simulation [6] approaches are employed to make these contexts more engaging and memorable beyond mere statistics. Our prototype VR simulation replicates an ordinary everyday scenario in an industrialized country, accounting for the behavior of the entire global population. The primary objective of this project is to improve the visualizations of effects on users towards a deeper understanding of the impacts their choices have on the environment, enabling them to establish a stronger connection to their actions and consequences.

Background & Motivation

Researchers have utilized VR environments to replicate real-world locations affected by climate change, enabling users to explore and firsthand witness the resulting impacts. The VR simulation of the consequences of ocean acidification by Markowitz et al. [6] effectively enhanced knowledge acquisition and favorable attitudes towards environmental issues in comparison to simply watching a video. Similarly, the VR simulation by Huang et al. [4] portraying a future forest under various climate scenarios incorporating an ecological model, yielded comparable outcomes and positive expert feedback. In a virtual seafood buffet experience, participants were able to select from a range of seafood and observe the degradation of each species due to the projected effects of climate change [8]. In our prototype, in addition to highlighting the consequences, we aim to emphasize how individuals can make more effective contributions to climate protection by modifying their own behavior.

Student’s Task

First, the existing VR application is to undergo a detailed and systematic usability and visual content optimization with preliminary user testing. Initial user feedback revealed weaknesses in terms of a clear communication of users choices affecting the environment and the visualization of the effects. Also, the interaction with the virtual environment in the game may dilute and bias possibly effects on the users. Second, a comprehensive user study with a control and an experimental group is to be held which will asses behavioral and personal changes. As theortical part, the project aims to first identify related work and gain a deeper understand of concepts like nudging [1, 4, 3] and employing HCI research for education for sustainable development [2]. As practical part, this project aims coding and software engineering to optimize the current application. Finally, the app will be employed in a comprehensive user study.

Technical Prerequisites

Applicants should be familiar with Unity and basic software development. They should know human-computer interaction and have an intrinsic interest in empiric experiments and working independently.

Please send your transcript of records, CV and motivation to: Julian Kreimeier (julian.kreimeier@tum.de) with CC to hex-thesis.ortho@mh.tum.de

Literatur

[1] Gitanshu Choudhary, Keshav Tadia, and Varun Dutt. “Effects of Simulation Tools and Videos on People’s Cognizance of Climate Change”. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments. PETRA ’23. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Aug. 2023, pp. 714–719. ISBN: 9798400700699. DOI: 10. 1145/3594806.3596547. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/3594806.3596547 (visited on 01/03/2024).
[2] Frank Ebinger, Livia Buttke, and Julian Kreimeier. “Augmented and virtual reality technologies in education for sustainable development: An expert-based technology assessment”. en. In: TATuP - Journal for Technology Assessment in Theory and Practice 31.1 (2022), pp. 28–34. ISSN: 2567-8833. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.31.1.28.
[3] Marta Ferreira, Nuno Nunes, and Valentina Nisi. “Interacting with Climate Change: A Survey of HCI and Design Projects and Their Use of Transmedia Storytelling”. en. In: Interactive Storytelling. Ed. by Alex Mitchell and Mirjam Vosmeer. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2021, pp. 338–348. ISBN: 978-3-030-92300-6. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-92300-6 33.
[4] Jiawei Huang et al. “Walking through the forests of the future: using data-driven virtual reality to visualize forests under climate change”. en. In: International Journal of Geographical Information Science 35.6 (June 2021), pp. 1155–1178. ISSN: 1365-8816, 1362-3087. DOI: 10.1080/13658816. 2020.1830997. URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13658816.2020.1830997 (visited on 06/26/2023).
[5] Julian Kreimeier et al. “Towards Eco-Embodiment: Virtual Reality for Building Climate Change Awareness within Education for Sustainable Development”. In: 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Adjunct (ISMAR-Adjunct). ISSN: 2771-1110. Oct. 2023, pp. 611– 612. DOI: 10.1109/ISMAR- Adjunct60411.2023.00130. URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/ document/10322182 (visited on 02/05/2024).
[6] David M. Markowitz et al. “Immersive Virtual Reality Field Trips Facilitate Learning About Climate Change”. In: Frontiers in Psychology 9 (Nov. 2018), p. 2364. ISSN: 1664-1078. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg. 2018.02364. URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02364/full (visited on 06/26/2023).
[7] Tania Ouariachi, Chih-Yen Li, and Wim J. L. Elving. “Gamification Approaches for Education and Engagement on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Searching for Best Practices”. en. In: Sustainability 12.11 (Jan. 2020). Number: 11 Publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, p. 4565. ISSN: 2071-1050. DOI: 10.3390/su12114565. URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4565 (visited on 05/30/2023).
[8] Daniel Pimentel et al. “Climate Change on Your Plate: A VR Seafood Buffet Experience”. In: 2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR). Osaka, Japan: IEEE, Mar. 2019, pp. 1120–1121. ISBN: 978-1-72811-377-7. DOI: 10.1109/VR.2019.8798076. URL: https://ieeexplore. ieee.org/document/8798076/ (visited on 06/26/2023).
[9] Stephen R. J. Sheppard et al. “Future visioning of local climate change: A framework for community engagement and planning with scenarios and visualisation”. en. In: Futures. Special Issue: Community Engagement for Sustainable Urban Futures 43.4 (May 2011), pp. 400–412. ISSN: 0016-3287. DOI: 10 . 1016 / j . futures . 2011 . 01 . 009. URL: https : / /www. sciencedirect .com/ science / article / pii / S0016328711000103 (visited on 05/01/2023).
[10] Vanessa Thomas et al. “HCI and Environmental Public Policy: Opportunities for Engagement”. In: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI ’17. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2017, pp. 6986–6992. ISBN: 978-1-4503- 4655-9. DOI: 10.1145/3025453.3025579. URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3025453.3025579 (visited on 05/01/2023).

Kontakt: hex-thesis.ortho@mh.tum.de, julian.kreimeier@tum.de