Publication details
Designing Environmental Education Comics: A Replicable Six-Stage Model
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Paper in proceedings |
| Conference | International Multidisciplinary Scientific Geoconference Surveying Geology and Mining Ecology Management Sgem |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | https://epslibrary.at/items/32244dda-3699-4afa-abf4-51f5000f0a56/designing-environmental-education-comics-a-replicable-six-stage-model |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.5593/sgem2025v/4.2/s21.92 |
| Keywords | comics; design theory; environmental education; iterative design; multimedia learning |
| Description | Many environmental topics are hard to master through text-only materials. Comics can present the same information more succinctly and engagingly, but impact depends on design quality. This theoretical paper advances a design theory and replicable process for creating environmental education comics. Synthesising multimedia learning principles, cognitive load management, and Universal Design for Learning, we formalise a cyclic model with six stages. Stages 1-2 establish a stable content baseline: a subject-matter expert defines the idea-unit map, and a canonical text is produced with matched readability. The text is then reviewed by educators to reach curriculum-credible and age-appropriate baseline. Stages 3-5 form the iterative design loop: a comic prototype is created from the same idea units (3), evaluated via expert heuristic review and learner walkthroughs (4), and revised (5). Stage 6 acts as a gate with explicit acceptance criteria. If criteria are unmet, the cycle returns to Stage 3, if met, the comic is released. This separation of baseline (1-2) from the design loop (3-5) supports controlled, replicable improvement without altering the underlying content. The contribution is a transferable, transparent method that educators and researchers can adopt to produce scalable, high-quality environmental comics, while enabling consistent reporting and future empirical evaluation - without claiming prior empirical superiority of comics over text. |
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