A Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification in K-12 Environmental Education: Is This Chocolate-Covered Broccoli?

Environmental education (EE) plays a vital role in engaging young people in exploring environmental issues and developing their sense of responsibility to the environment. Although gamification appears to be a promising way to motivate and engage K-12 students, it is unclear how it should be implemented in EE and whether it holds promising results similar to other contexts, such as science and engineering education. This paper reports a systematic literature review analysing the 28 papers published in the last five years. The results show how gamification has been employed to support EE and in what contexts. More specifically, the findings of this review contribute to our knowledge in the following three aspects: (1) EE strategies for implementing gamified interventions, (2) gamification strategies and elements utilised in EE, and (3) reported outcomes of gamified EE intervention. Finally, the paper discusses the implications for future related research on developing gamified interventions for EE.