A public tangible interface for engaging and informing young citizens about climate change

This paper is focused on the design of a tangible interface to be installed in a public space for improving children's awareness of climate change and permitting them to understand the relation between CO2 and other environmental variables. The interface was developed in the context of an EU project targeted at re-populating the flora of selected sea shores of Northeast Italy and measuring the results of this work - in terms of CO2 concentration - using a network of sensors gathering a set of environmental parameters. A prototype of the tangible interface, which allows young citizens to access the collected data and understand the relations between them, was implemented and experimented with a class of children of the Primary School, in order to understand its benefits in terms of engagement and learning.