Kristina Schick

There is a need to understand and improve the relationship between science and society. Literature shows that people’s knowledge about science, especially that of children, is limited. We hypothesize that this may be due to lack of understanding of the scientific method, leading to a negative attitude towards science. To verify the hypothesis we developed an online adventure trail to educate people about the scientific method in the context of climate change. Our project, Munich Urban Climate Trail (MUCtrail) aims to evoke scientific curiosity in a playful way. We use the design thinking approach to understand the problem, define the target audience, develop our idea, prototype, implement and test it. We develop an online adventure trail in collaboration with the City of Munich’s Referat für Umwelt und Gesundheit with Olympiapark as the backdrop. Each station in the trail educates and informs the user about different aspects of climate change in urban areas while walking through the different steps of the scientific method. The effectiveness of the online tool is assessed by a questionnaire regarding the scientific method supplied to the participants. We observed that participants showed improved knowledge of the scientific method and climate change in an urban environment like Munich. We therefore conclude that a positive attitude towards science should be fostered to enable a greater scientific knowledge.