2024-2025 Climate-physics in podcasts (DBU)

Two-thirds of 12-19-year-olds listen to podcasts. While podcasts are increasingly integrated into school lessons as students' project work, the educational use of audio formats as learning tools has yet to be comprehensively researched. There is significant potential for enhancing individualized learning processes.

The project is being carried out in collaboration with Studio Feynstein. Within the project, 10 paired episodes focused on the physical principles of climate change (e.g., greenhouse effect, carbon cycle) will be developed and evaluated. The evaluation process will analyze the reception of the environmental education content by the general podcast audience. Additionally, a specific emphasis will be placed on the application of these formats in school physics lessons. Workshops with teachers will clarify the pedagogical suitability of podcasts and explore meaningful integration into a range of media (such as experiments, texts, images, films), learning objectives, and methodologies. These workshops will lead to tests of the podcasts in classroom settings, which will be qualitatively evaluated through teacher protocols, classroom observations, and follow-up interviews with students.

The feedback from the public listeners' evaluation will directly inform the redesign of the episodes in the climate podcast series. The educational assessment will help establish podcasts as a valuable learning tool in science classes. The gathered insights will further guide the development of future climate podcast episodes to better align with educational contexts. Ultimately, the project aims to promote the strategic use of audio formats in classrooms, especially in the teaching of intricate, environmentally relevant topics.

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Funded by the DBU