Designing multimedia artifacts to enhance students' conceptual understanding of Climate Change
Abstract: This study investigated the impacts of two constructivist frameworks, constructionism and social constructivism, on students’ awareness and activism in solving environmental problems. Additionally, social networking technologies were integrated into the process to improve the effectiveness of the frameworks employed in this study. A convergent mixed methods design was implemented to triangulate the methods by directly comparing and contrasting quantitative results with qualitative findings for corroboration and validation purposes. Twenty-two 10th to 12th graders were recruited from their environmental science class to participate in this study. The findings indicated that students’ environmental attitudes, awareness and activism were improved throughout the constructionist and social constructivist learning processes. In addition, constructionist and social constructivist methods and tools positively affected student motivation and engagement by providing social presence of the students via video designing and social networking technologies.