How Teacher Feedback Helped Reimagine, Redesign, and Recode a Sustainability Education App

Pollution, deforestation, and climate change have been taking a toll on Kazakhstan's fragile ecosystems. The consequential challenges of food insecurity and resource depletion are further exacerbated by the growing population in densely populated cities such as Almaty, Astana, and Shymkent. Despite Kazakhstan's initial efforts towards carbon neutrality and setting a target to achieve it by 2060, there is still significant work to be done to reach that goal. Governmental and public efforts are impactful, but educational and technological approaches are also crucial to effectively addressing the issue. So how can we make that possible? Over the last three years, researchers at Lehigh University in the United States and Almaty Management University in Kazakhstan have collaborated on developing Save Tuba. Save Tuba is a gamified sustainability platform that aims to educate students in grades second to fifth about building sustainable habits through inquiry-based learning techniques. The application utilizes two powerful pedagogical tools, gamification, and inquiry-based learning, to create a dynamic and collaborative learning environment that actively promotes long-term habit formation and behavior change. Our approach involves emotional engagement through interactive games and activities to encourage meaningful interactions with surroundings and peers. This paper details the use of teacher feedback from focus group discussions to enhance our approach to addressing environmental problems and building a better application.