Constructionism 2012, Athens, Greece ISBN: 978-960-88298-4-8 RESEARCH REPORT 156 Children Learning about ‘Urban Sustainability’ through Playing and Re-constructing a Half-Baked Microworld Georgia Liarakou, liarakou@rhodes.aegean.gr Pedagogical Dept of Primary Education, School of Humanities, University of the Aegean Maria Daskolia, mdaskol@ppp.uoa.gr Environmental Education Lab, Dept of Pedagogy, School of Philosophy, University of Athens Anna Papanikolaou, premnt10018@aegean.gr Pedagogical Dept of Primary Education, School of Humanities, University of the Aegean Abstract The study reported in this paper is based on the implementation of an educational activity which was designed to engage Greek students of the 6 th grade in collective meaning-making processes on the concept of ‘urban sustainability’ while collaboratively playing and de-constructing a game microworld. A half-baked digital game on the idea of sustainable city was created by the researchers based on the Sus-X microworld template. The study’s findings indicate that the students’ understandings of what 'sustainability in a city' pertains seem to evolve as a result of the processes involved in the constructionist activity. Patterns of their interaction with the microworld show that the students managed to realise in varying degrees the existence and interplay of the three axes of sustainability (environment - society - economy). We discuss the learning gains of treating complex and abstract concepts, such as that of sustainability, through applying constructionist pedagogical designs. Keywords Sustainability, sustainable city, Constructionism, digital games, half-baked microworlds Introduction Constructionist frames of epistemology and learning have been traditionally applied to subject domains such as mathematics education, science education and computers education. Extending constructionist thinking beyond these fields to social sciences, humanities and the arts is a major challenge yet to be undertaken. This is particularly true for educational domains that promote interdisciplinary, systemic and critical knowledge about complex concepts and issues related to contemporary realities such as those dealt within the context of Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Does Constructionism offer new tools along with a new platform for thinking about how to gain new ways of understanding these concepts and issues and consequently how to design learning in these domains in both appropriate and more effective ways? The study reported in this paper has been designed to explore the implementation of a constructionist framework in teaching and learning about the concept of urban sustainability within the context of an EE activity. Sustainability has become a fashionable word in environmental policy discourse over the last two decades not only among scientists, politicians and policy-makers but also among the general