Test our Prototypes for Climate Communication
Vismedia publishes six innovative media designs made by students at the University of Bergen. You can test all six prototypes and read their accompanying specifications below.
Main content
Written by Lars Nyre, Andy Opel and Kristin Eidsheim.
In the spring of 2020 thirty students in Media City Bergen made prototypes of responsible ways to communicate climate information. This was the second part of a course where they also conducted critical evaluations of climate communication. Read more about the innovative course here.
Novel ideas
The student groups designed novel solutions for climate communication for the national broadcaster NRK and the company Scary Weather and their customers the Natural History Museum and Fløibanen AS.
The design prototypes show great variety in the use of aesthetic principles, rhetorical appeals and interactivity. They can all be further developed in collaboration with NRK and Scary Weather, or they can become the starting point for independent entrepreneurial projects.
The concepts and functionalities are valuable to journalists, climate communicators and the general public alike, and they are therefore published by Vismedia with consent from all the participating students.
It is unusual for exam reports to be published, but it would be unfortunate for high quality work to remain unavailable, and publication furthermore gives students a clear sense of ownership to their work. Knowing their work would be available to a public audience raised the bar for the students and resulted in strong work with a clear commitment to the projects.
The six prototypes
First, the collaborating media company is presented briefly, and then the students’ design projects are summarized. You can test all the prototypes and watch videos of how they work. To read the full specifications click on the icons. The reports are available in English and Norwegian.
NORWEGIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (NRK)
NRK is Norway's main public broadcasting service, financed by tax income to inform, educate and entertain the population. Like the BBC in Britain, NRK is supposed to produce content characterized by cultural and geographical diversity in a politically neutral way. NRK runs a number of radio and TV stations, as well as a large website (nrk.no). The contact for the MIX202 student projects was editor of the climate task force; Astrid Rommetveit.
«Climate calculator V. 2» aims to enlighten young users about their own emissions in order to create engagement and get youth more involved in the climate debate. The calculator is a renewed version of NRK’s existing climate calculator and is an intended feature for NRK’s «Climate dashboard». «Climate calculator V. 2»-users are greeted by a friendly chatbot which guides them through a simple survey about their everyday life. Then the results of the survey is presented by the chatbot; you get an overview of your own emissions, as well as feedback and tips for improvement. By keeping it light and easy, combined with a visual expression that is young and new, «Climate calculator V. 2» offers a great and satisfying user experience for a young audience.
«Emergency preparedness calculator - How you and your family can prepare yourselves»
Are you and your household prepared for an emergency? This multimedia article about contingency introduces you to all the crisis essentials you need to manage for at least 72 hours on your own. By taking an interactive survey about your household, the emergency preparedness calculator calculates how prepared you are for a potential crisis, and tells you what you need to be fully prepared, as well as how to store the items. Additionally, to create engagement regarding contingency, users can share the calculated results on social media, in order to compare preparedness with friends and family.
«Climate dashboard – A user-friendly platform for reliable climate information»
Have you ever wanted to be involved and learn more about climate change, but feel overwhelmed and uncertain about which sources you could trust? «Climate dashboard» is a subpage of NRK’s climate editorial «NRK Klima», which gives you all the facts you need to participate in the neverending climate debate. The interactive dashboard presents complex climate statistics in an easy and precise way, providing the user with reliable information tailored to their everyday life and needs. Its purpose is to help inform the Norwegian population with objective facts about climate, from a well known and credible source.
SCARY WEATHER
Scary Weather is a media company that produces interactive installations and multimedia stories about weather and climate change. The company is responsible for a number of installations at the University of Bergen's Natural History Museum. CEO Ronald Toppe was the contact for the MIX202 student projects.
«Bergen Climate Travel» lets you experience climate change right in front of you. With the help of AR-technology and your smartphone’s camera, the app visualizes a time travel with emphasis on how Bergen is changing and influenced by climate change. An experience like this will make climate change feel more real and is likely to make a big impression, which further motivates to environmentally friendly behavior. «Bergen Climate Travel» offers a fun and educational experience, for both old and young, on mount Fløyen, and is as equally appealing to locals as tourists.
Similar to the early 2000s phenomenon Tamagotchi, «Climategotchi» plays on a responsibility and commitment to take care of a virtual globe. This is done by taking on weekly challenges, such as cycling to work or not eating meat for a week. When you complete a challenge, the Climategotchi-avatar will be satisfied and the CO2, sea level and temperature will decrease on the virtual globe. Likewise, if you choose to defy a challenge, the avatar will express dissatisfaction and levels will increase. The app takes a positive spin on climate dissemination and encourages climate-friendly behavior in a playful way, through gamification of your everyday life.
«The climate choice – A game where your everyday choices affect the globe»
«The climate choice» is an educational game about how our everyday life choices affect the climate. It is targeted towards secondary school-students, and aims to make youth more involved and aware of climate change. The game follows the character Kim Klima and his friend through everyday situations youngsters typically can find themselves in. Along the way you are presented with dilemmas in which the choices you make affect the globe, as well as fact-based feedback and information regarding the impact of your selected choice. The game offers a great educational experience and is well suited for its target audience.
The value of innovation pedagogy
These six projects were led quite independently by the students themselves. While they did receive constructive criticism from teachers as well as industry collaborators, they often kept to their original ideas and were not afraid to stand their ground.
The groups employed a variety of digital tools to present climate information in new and engaging formats. Connecting climate to our daily habits and providing direct feedback to users is a theme throughout the projects as the students learned how to connect databases with app development and augmented reality.
The visibility of these projects beyond the classroom gave the students added incentive to work hard and produce work that could be shared well beyond the university setting. This is a significant feature of the innovation pedagogy model. The quality of the work supports the idea that student engagement with challenging social issues can be a major motivator and yield the kind of influential work that demonstrates the power and influence of a university experience.
The pedagogical team
The course leader for MIX202 was Professor Lars Nyre. Subject teachers were Professor Andy Opel (Florida State University), Senior Engineer Zulfikar Fahmy, PhD Fellow Fredrik Håland Jensen, PhD Fellow Oda Elise Nordberg and Master's Student Jonathan Lindø Meling. The evaluations were translated into English by Kristin Eidsheim.
Our contacts in the companies were chief editor Sigvald Sveinbjørnsson in the newspaper BA, journalist and leader of the task force for climate journalism Astrid Rommetveit in NRK, and media entrepreneur Ronald Toppe in Scary Weather.
The value of innovation pedagogy
These six projects were led quite independently by the students themselves. While they did receive constructive criticism from teachers as well as industry collaborators, they often kept to their original ideas and were not afraid to stand their ground.
The groups employed a variety of digital tools to present climate information in new and engaging formats. Connecting climate to our daily habits and providing direct feedback to users is a theme throughout the projects as the students learned how to connect databases with app development and augmented reality.
The visibility of these projects beyond the classroom gave the students added incentive to work hard and produce work that could be shared well beyond the university setting. This is a significant feature of the innovation pedagogy model. The quality of the work supports the idea that student engagement with challenging social issues can be a major motivator and yield the kind of influential work that demonstrates the power and influence of a university experience.
The pedagogical team
The course leader for MIX202 was Professor Lars Nyre. Subject teachers were Professor Andy Opel (Florida State University), Senior Engineer Zulfikar Fahmy, PhD Fellow Fredrik Håland Jensen, PhD Fellow Oda Elise Nordberg and Master's Student Jonathan Lindø Meling. The evaluations were translated into English by Kristin Eidsheim.
Our contacts in the companies were chief editor Sigvald Sveinbjørnsson in the newspaper BA, journalist and leader of the task force for climate journalism Astrid Rommetveit in NRK, and media entrepreneur Ronald Toppe in Scary Weather.