H. Söbke, J. Baalsrud Hauge, M. Wolf, & F. Wehking (eds.):
Proceedings of DELbA 2020
Workshop on Designing and Facilitating Educational Location-based Applications
co-located with the
Fifteenth European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2020)
Heidelberg, Germany, Online, September 15, 2020
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Designing and Implementing a Gamified Educational
Location-based Application for Raising Awareness on
Sustainability Issues Among Students
Ioana Andreea Stefan
1
, Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge
2,3
, Ancuta Florentina Gheorge
1
,
Antoniu Stefan
1
1
Advanced Technology Systems
Str. Tineretului, nr. 1, Targoviste, Romania
2
Bremen Institut fur Produktion und Logistik an der Universität Bremen, Hochschulring 20,
28359 Bremen, Germany
3
KTH- Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
ioana.stefan@ats.com.ro
Abstract. Sustainability aspects become more and more relevant and an inte-
grated part of formal education. A challenge remains how to connect the rather
theoretical definition of the 17 different goals for sustainable development de-
fined by the UN in such a way that the students see a direct implication into their
lives and reflect upon their own decisions. Using location-based apps that provide
the users with context relevant information may support to establish this connec-
tion between theoretical goals and practical influence on daily decisions. This
article presents the piloting testing of an educational scenario and discusses how
the same app can be transferred to a different environment, by simply changing
the location-based content.
Keywords: educational location-based applications (ELA), experimental edu-
cation on sustainability, sustainable transport.
1 Introduction
In the last decades, organizations have put effort into aligning their core values or
business principles with key sustainability goals. Such actions have resulted into a high
demand for a workforce that has a sustainability mindset, requiring a major shift in
educational goals and practices.
The United Nations have defined 17 global sustainable development goals (SDGs)
with 169 targets and 330 indicators. However, these definitions and targets represent
only the first step in consolidating sustainable approaches. The key sustainability prin-
ciples build upon the capacity to innovate, to reduce waste, and to function efficiently