How to Save the World | The Psychology & Science of Environmental Behavior

What are the behavioral science secrets behind making a climate action dashboard for cities that ACTUALLY gets people to act? In this episode, I'll take you a deep dive into the design theory behind creating a climate action dashboard for a city using a behavioral science-informed approach. I share the importance of distinguishing between action design and graphic design, as well as climate reporting and climate accounting. Climate Action Design is different. It's not "reporting," it's designed to invoke a behavioral response. The aim is to create dashboards and apps that motivate people to take pro-environmental action (not just display data). To get the most out of this episode, please download the dashboard design at this link here while you are listening: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oc3muxbklvh43xc/high-res-dashboard.png?dl=0 1. Show the start, in numbers.2. Show the end, the goal, quantitatively.3. Show a feedback loop score on what you want to change that updates often.4. Identify highly specific actions and track the progress of these.5. Use nested groups (like teams in a game) i.e. cities in a county or classrooms in a school.6. Break the goals down into levels, like a video game or karate belts. Focus on moving people to the next level from where they are at, in increments.7. Give rewards when players achieve a notch in the level, like a badge or prize.8. Always benchmark and compare to the average performance of the group, maybe use a leaderboard. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  Follow on:  Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

In this episode, we chat with Sophie Poisel, an award-winning innovative teacher who hosted the first Earth Imagination Week with her students. Sophie showed us that when you give children the tools to imagine positive new ecological worlds, they come up with incredible work! Eco Minecraft worlds, green Lego lands, biophilic architectural illustrations, 3D building models - the kids made it. We delved into the power of environmental imagination and how it can spark awe-inspiring creativity and passion in young minds. And even more so, how sustainability education and environmental imagination exercise diffuses into the entire family, leading to real and tangible behavior changes in parents. Sophie is the head of the Lang Walker Academy at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and has post-graduate studies and research in gifted education and has been awarded the Premier’s Prize and a high commendation from the Prime Minister of Australia for her work in innovation in STEM-based education. See that the kids made: https://www.instagram.com/katiepatrickhello/guide/earth-imagination-day/17928466082290777/ Download the free Earth Imagination Toolkit at http://katiepatrick.com/imagine Get in touch with Sophie: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-poisel-5118a0188 Twitter @sophiepoisel Email sophiepoisel@powerhouse.com.au * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  Follow on:  Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Do you gauge the quality of your work, content, and life by how "fun" it is? Weird secret - I used to HATE being asked what I did "for fun." In this episode, I share how I started taking the theory and pursuit of fun more "seriously" (lol) as a daily practice and how it's changed everything. I discovered how asking this one question "What is the most fun thing I could do?" can breathe magic into your environmental work, expand your creativity, and unexpectedly redirect you more closely to your true calling. I share more on the theory of fun, the dopamine system, and how the pursuit of fun is an essential driver of innovation and growth. * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  Follow on:  Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Don't let your audience walk away without actually doing anything. Here's the action design shorthand you need. Use each of these evidence-based techniques in your project, campaign, or startup to ensure every person you touch goes on to take a real action that shifts the numbers. Download The 7 Pillars of Behavioral Science for Climate Action Poster PDF: http://bit.ly/43Ip9E2 How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  Follow on:  Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Today's guest is Dan White. He is the CEO and Founder of the award-winning impact-games development company, Filament Games. Dan is an artist and entrepreneur and probably the world’s most prolific games-for-impact developer. We talk about the nuance of how to create a game that engages, educates, and transforms people and we explore what happens when we put art, action, and impact together into an educational game format. Dan and his team at Filament have created nine games specifically about the environment: Otter Planet: https://www.habitheque.com/an-otter-planet  Aquation: https://ssec.si.edu/aquation  Climate Champions: https://www.filamentgames.com/project/climate-champions-2/  Citizen Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxmdvsSuR-g  Land Grab (game jam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpVcVODuXeU&ab_channel=FilamentGames  EcoKingdoms: https://game-cdn.legendsoflearning.com/content-deploy/4452/EcoKingdoms-Interactions_427/index.html  Resilient Planet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUWoNACJ-7Q  Eco Defenders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfhHhisTrxE  Energy City: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIe-HzUodcU  https://www.filamentgames.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/danwhite3/ https://www.instagram.com/filamentgames/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/filament-games/ * * *  How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Follow on  Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

This month's guest expert on the How to Save the World podcast is Nicole Sintov, Associate Professor of Behavior, Decision-Making, and Sustainability from Ohio State University. We'll be interviewing Nicole on her published research paper, "Guilt consistently motivates pro-environmental outcomes while pride depends on context." The gist of this research shows that telling people they are performing worse than most others on environmental and climate action, stimulates people to do better. We'll dig into the question, "Should we be showering people with compliments and positive feedback about their good efforts, or are we better just telling people when they are doing a bad job?" Not that we need to ONLY make people feel guilty, but negative feedback gets a bad wrap and tends to be avoided, but there’s definitely a strong role for it - and it needs to be a tool in the toolbox of change. Nicole's research paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494422000214 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-sintov-b3b4a01a3/ * * *  How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

MeshMinds makes planet-themed augmented reality games designed to massively increase engagement and social media sharing of environmental campaigns. Kay and Olivier and I met when we were working for UNEP on the Clean Seas campaign. They do some really interesting work using the software Spark AR (that’s only used for instagram and Facebook applications) to make these very novel, light, immersive, and fun experiences - kind of like a mini or micro game - that people access by pressing the star icon on Instagram. And holey moley, the things they make really work! Their game-like creations on Instagram have gotten millions of plays, shares, and viral marketing spreading by mastering this novel approach to engagement. In this episode, we'll be diving into various creative ways you can use Spark AR and some of the theory to getting your project to really work. Download the Spark AR software for free and try and make something https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio Don't forget, always jump on YouTube to search for free tutorials for anything you want to learn. Meshminds.com https://www.instagram.com/meshminds/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kvasey/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivier-bos/ * * *  How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

Today's guest is environmental psychologist, Veronica Champine, PhD Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant at Colorado State University. We're breaking down the science of "social diffusion" in her research paper "Understanding individual and diffusion behaviors related to native plant gardening" recently published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. Her research explores the difference between asking people to take individual action vs asking people to talk to people around them and showing by example - that's social diffusion - an often missing link in many climate programs and startups. We'll be diving into the power and nuance of helping people to get better at diffusing environmental behaviors in their communities - and what we need to do to become designers of social diffusion. Connect with Veronica on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronica-champine-5305309a/ The paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494422000433 ---------------------- How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL  This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick Instagram @katiepatrickhello LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/

There's a line in a song that says "Words are hotter fire. Words are wetter than water." You might not think that words possess a superpower that can help you change the world, but if you're in the job of influencing people to change, language is your secret weapon.  In this episode, I talk through some of the mistakes I see people make and how you can get better at crafting your written story and your copywriting. I hope you take the time to master the art of sculpting words that deeply move people, and through that, you can spark a revolution.   I recommend you read these books: On Writing Well, by Willian Zinsser https://amzn.to/2Ty9qsr  The Sense of Style, by Steven Pinker https://amzn.to/3dDF6DH * * *  How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join my Gamify the Planet masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet  Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Contribute a monthly donation to the How to Save the World podcast at patreon.com/katiepatrick Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm

What would it take to make "A Fitbit of the world's forests"? As you could imagine, it would be a momentous task. Global Forest Watch is doing it. It's one of the world's most technically ambitious ecological monitoring projects that maps and monitors the entire Earth's forest cover, with high-frequency updates, and ecological health insights, and displays it on a beautiful and easy-to-use browser interface. Global Forest Watch a partnership between the World Resources Institute and multiple philanthropic bodies, conversation NGOs, and universities. The technical intricacy of this project spans right from the satellites that collect the data through to processing the images, the algorithms that scan for tree cover and calculate changes, the depth of data in the electromagnetic spectrum and how it conveys ecological health, and how to get it all looking nice and loadable on a browser. And then there's the biggest question of all – how does all this data visualization actually help forests get protected off the computer?  How do we use complex environmental data to drive change in the real world? Global Forest Watch (GFW) is a map-based platform that allows anyone to access near real-time information about where and how forests are changing around the world. See the Global Forest Watch platform here. https://twitter.com/globalforests https://www.instagram.com/globalforests * * * How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Join Gamify the Planet Masterclass Training in Climate Action Design for $25/month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet  Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Follow Katie on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn