ZuKon 2030: An Innovative Learning Environment Focused on Sustainable Development Goals

Global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need for visionary innovations in chemical education. We recently deigned a new learning environment called “ZuKon 2030”, which addresses sustainability from a chemical perspective while simultaneously introducing students to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030. It integrates modern and innovative learning strategies by creating a format that can be used in either face-to-face or distance learning settings. In addition to the modules designed as exit games embedded in the overarching narrative of a fictional science conference, the Future Conference, paper materials enriched with Augmented Reality are used in order to allow students to complete the modules independently. In this paper, we present the basic concept of the learning environment and concretely show the implementation of the concept. We use the module “The Mystery of Coral Death” as an example, and we report our results and experiences with the entire learning environment. In the preliminary study, the students rated the hybrid learning environment mostly positively in the areas of thematic content, realization of the learning environment, digital content, and game elements.