The YCO2 program consists of three workshops of one to 2 hours each, depending on the school, class, and instructor needs. Likewise, according to needs and schedules, instructors may conduct the workshops on subsequent days, or spread them out over the course of several weeks or months. All teaching materials are available on the program website (http://youandco2.org/), including lesson plans, activity worksheets, discussion questions and prompts, and rubrics, as well as the program IDN No World 4 Tomorrow and tutorials for the students to create their own IDNs. The full description of the program can be found in Rudd et al., 2019.

The workshops were conducted by the researchers (Rudd and Skains) in Spring 2019 in person in Valley and Heighton schools (school details below), using school-provided equipment and IT support: Valley provided desktop or Chromebook computers, while Heighton students had individual tablets of varying brands. At the latter two schools, Clearend and Summervale, the class teachers delivered the workshops in in-person classes in Spring 2021 using school-provided equipment and IT support, subsequent to training sessions from the researchers.

Prior to Workshop 1, students complete a survey measuring their knowledge of and attitudes regarding climate change (see Horry et al. in review for survey development). Workshop 1 is focused on the chemistry and mathematics of climate change: after a demonstration of the molecular chemistry of carbon production, the students calculate their own carbon footprints for their typical morning activities. They then form groups with the task of reducing the group’s combined footprint by one-third through negotiating their activities for those with lower impact, and discuss their strategies through presentations and class discussion. This workshop’s multiliteracies activities combine mathematics, chemistry, group communication, negotiation, and presentation.

Workshop 2 is a reading of the custom-built IDN for the project, No World 4 Tomorrow (Skains 2019a); the instructor chooses whether to lead a group reading of the IDN using a projector, to have the students play through the IDN individually on separate digital devices, or some hybrid of the two, depending on class make-up and abilities. This workshop’s multiliteracies activities combines reading, digital skills, discussion, and considering options and choices in fictional versus real-world scenarios.

Workshop 3 incorporates research, writing, and digital literacy skills, in that the students are then tasked with designing and creating their own IDNs on the topic of climate change, either in small groups or as individuals. The YCO2 program provides an online tutorial for this workshop, as well as a story prompt exercise for any students who struggle to find what to write about. Students submit their IDNs on a voluntary basis to the researchers, and complete the final project survey on climate change knowledge and attitudes. This workshop’s multiliteracies activities incorporate research, creative storytelling, writing, intermediate digital skills, and critical thinking.

The project’s IDN, No World 4 Tomorrow (NW4T), was purpose-built for this project by the first author; a full discussion of the practice-based approach, challenges, choices, rationales, and activities appears in Skains et al., 2019. Its communicative purpose was to effect positive behaviour change regarding climate change action, inspiring its target audience through creation of an emotional connection, in line with existing literature on educating through entertainment media (Huffaker and Calvert 2003; Singhal et al., 2003; Sood et al., 2003; Resnick 2004; Rapeepisarn et al., 2006; Dahlstrom 2014). Arvind Singhal et al. (2003) recommend specific strategies for entertainment-media-as-education: focusing on relatable characters, achieving message saturation through repetition and word of mouth, encouraging small iterative changes in the audience, encouraging self-efficacy, and complying with the audience’s cultural values and norms so that they do not reject the message. Further, it is important that any climate change education program engender a feeling of hope, offering positive motivation to enact change (Pruneau et al., 2001). Creating these emotional connections entails designing a story with strong characterisation and a good narrative arc—making the quality of the story the primary aim for the work, so that its audience will not only connect with it individually to take its message on board, but also to enjoy it sufficiently to share with peers, teachers, and parents for greater message saturation and long-tail (Anderson 2006; Brown and Adler 2008) longevity for the work.

Background research for constructing the IDN included reviewing narratives, themes, and genres popular with the target age group: the Maze Runner series (Dashner 2013), Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Albertalli 2015), the Ship Breaker series (Bacigalupi 2010), and Deadpool (Nicieza and Liefeld 1991). We determined that audiences in our target demographics enjoyed narratives with humour, a slightly older main character (age 16–18), personalisation, social media, love interests (including open approaches to sexuality), self-realisation, feelings of control, and mystery/adventure. Based on our goals for the IDN and this audience research, we identified the following constraints for the work:

1) The IDN must be relatable for the audience (localised to their experience and culture, with options for custom personalisation)

We sought to counter diffusion of responsibility (Wegner and Schaefer 1978) in NW4T by creating a microcosm of a planet-wide problem, embedding the narrative in a much smaller community where individual actions would be more apparent, and have more immediate effect. This resulted in NW4T’s setting as a lunar colony, a small population of adventuring residents with very limited resources and a strong need to function cooperatively as a community. The reader/player enters their name and the names of friends or family members, all of whom become characters in the story, engendering greater emotional connection to the narrative. We added a “faction” of the community working counter to this goal, whose inappropriate use of resources enables the reader/player to make choices about not only individual actions, but also society’s actions; this narrative parallels real-world options about individual carbon footprints, as well as the path of activism that aims to affect wider society’s actions regarding climate change.

The IDN was built using Twine (Klimas 2009), a free, open-source, browser-based authoring tool specifically for creating IDNs; the resulting IDN is an HTML file deployable as a website that can be read on any digital device (including both mouse-driven and touch-tap). In response to technical limitations in many United Kingdom schools, as well as the understanding that participants would likely want to imitate mechanical elements in their own IDNs in Workshop 3, NW4T used relatively few multimedia or advanced gameplay techniques. Participants began the IDN by inputting a codename (a combination of letters drawn from their birthdate, address, family members, etc.) that was both unique to each student and reconstructable should they forget it; the codename was used not only for access to the IDN, but also on both surveys and the student-created IDNs, enabling anonymous linkage of all collected data. The narrative begins with a prompt to enter their name and pronouns, and the names and pronouns of their three most frequent contacts, which are then populated throughout the narrative for personalisation.

Text was displayed over a consistent background image (a public-domain NASA photo of Earthrise from the lunar surface), with only one additional photo appearing in the narrative. The text was in a sans-serif font in a contrasting shade (light grey on the black starscape background) to aid special educational needs in terms of general understandability. Links leading to new passages, including several “pop-up” passages that offer exposition on specific story topics, were coloured orange and underlined; “cycling links”, which do not lead to new passages but act as multiple choice options, changing their text each time they are clicked/tapped (e.g., for lunch options), were teal, underlined. For greater accessibility, words and phrases requiring a higher reading level were mouse-over/tappable (green, underlined); mousing over/tapping resulted in audio playing United Kingdom pronunciation of the word, and the word to cycle to a simpler synonym or phrase. The audio could be muted if desired. Several sections included an overlay image of the reader/player’s “comm” (essentially, a mobile phone) that included animated messages between them and their community; these advanced with clicks/taps, enabling reading at varying speeds for accessibility.

Six different endings were incorporated into NW4T to allow the participants to see the effects of their choices: the reader/player becomes a climate change activist urging wider societal change, an eco-warrior with strong personal commitment to the environment, a neutral citizen who neither harms nor aids in the crisis, a slightly irresponsible citizen whose actions contribute in a small way to the crisis, a neglectful citizen whose actions contribute significantly to the crisis, or an outright villain whose selfish actions will directly lead to destruction of the community. The choices the reader/player makes in traversing the IDN are both macro-choices leading to differing narrative pathways for each of the possible endings, or micro-choices that reflect on the reader/player’s individual actions; regardless of which ending is achieved, the reader/player receives a comment on how their smaller actions, like choosing transport methods or what to eat for lunch, affect their environment.

Finally, NW4T included functionality to record participant choices, which is not a standard feature of Twine. Significant choices in the story, both micro- and macro-, were labelled with variables, as were the end states of each playthrough; at the conclusion of the playthrough, these compiled into a JSON list sent to a designated Google Sheet. This playthrough data is arranged by anonymous codename, and records how many different playthroughs each codename completes. Once captured, the data is stored on password-encoded drives in compliance with the approved ethics for this project.

The data in this paper was collected from four different schools in Wales and England; names of schools and participants have been anonymised in this discussion to maintain anonymity of the data. Participants were selected based on teachers who volunteered to incorporate the program into their existing curricula; variations in implementation and participant groups exist because of teacher preferences in the classrooms running the programs, as well as scheduling and logistical concerns depending on school timetables, planned curricula, special events, and researcher availability. Participants could withdraw or withhold their data. Drop-outs occurred when students were not present at any of the workshop sessions, or if they did not submit or withdrew their data.

Valley School is a large (1800 students) school in South Wales, rated Excellent in the most recent Estyn, 2018 inspection prior to running the YCO2 program. The school ethos incorporates a “School Advisory Board” where students can contribute to school-related discussions and decisions; the Estyn report notes that the Key Stage 3 students’ literacy skills are strong, and the students approach real-life problems with confidence. YCO2 was taught to 85 students from three high-ability Year 9 (age 13–14) classes in 1-h sessions with approximately 1 month between each. The students shared computers to read/play NW4T in Workshop 2.

Heighton School is a smaller independent school (200 students) in North Wales, with 32% international students. The Estyn report ranked Heighton between “Good” and “Adequate and Needs Improvement”: students were keen learners, but instruction was often not differentiated sufficiently to suit varying students’ needs. YCO2 was taught to three classes of approximately 30 students each, one each from Years 8, 9, and 10 (age 12–15). Workshop 1 was 1 hour, while Workshops 2 and 3 were both 2 hours; all three workshops were taught on successive days as part of a special STEM week. Workshop 2 was conducted in the hybrid model: the first read-through was done as a whole class, with the work displayed on a projector and the students suggesting which options to click (approx. 45 min). Students were able to use individual devices (primarily tablets) for the remaining time in the session to read/play NW4T as many times as they liked, with a prompt to see how many endings they could find.

Clearend Middle School is a small middle school in Northern England with 300 pupils across Years 6, 7, and 8. The school was rated “Good” by Oftsted and it was noted that “pupils have also participated in research” (UK Government 2019). YCO2 was taught to one Year 8 (age 12–13) class of approximately 30 students. Workshops 1 and 2 were both conducted in December 2020; unfortunately, a regional increase in COVID-19 infection rates prompted the school to close early for the winter holidays, and thus Workshop 3 could not run. Workshop 2 was conducted in the hybrid model: the first read-through was done as a whole class, with the work displayed on a projector and the students suggesting which options to click (approx. 45 min). Students were able to use individual devices (primarily tablets) for the remaining time in the session to read/play NW4T as many times as they liked, with a prompt to see how many endings they could find.

Summervale School is a secondary school in South Wales, rated “Good” in the most recent Estyn inspection prior to running the YCO2 program. The school has 1,400 students enrolled across Years 7–13. The school has a high proportion (40%) of students from economically deprived areas. Approximately 50 students from the school’s Year 8 (age 12–13) came to Swansea University as part of an “eco-day”. Students were shown around the Bay Campus and were involved in a beach litter pick and a tour of the energy-saving measures on campus. Workshop 2 from YCO2 was then run as an activity as part of the eco-day. Students were given access to NW4T on individual desktop computers. As the group was mixed ability some students struggled to read NW4T without significant assistance and some students had found all six endings within 30 min. Therefore, a group reading completed the activity.

The collected data was collated by codename and number of replays. Proportional analysis was manually conducted of the data from a grounded theory perspective, qualitatively reviewing the data to reveal patterns for further analysis, based on the following objectives:

• How many playthroughs each reader/player completed

While more data was collected, these are the only areas that, based on the noted qualitative analysis of proportional trends, yielded any particular patterns.