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Meltdown: Bridging the Perception Gap in Sustainable Food Behaviors Through Immersive VR

Acacia Chong Xiao Xuan, Florentiana Yuwono, Melissa Anastasia Harijanto, Xu Yi

TL;DR

Meltdown addresses the perception gap in climate education by using an immersive VR escape room that simulates everyday grocery shopping and food-waste disposal to teach sustainable consumption. Built in Unity, the game guides participants through a supermarket and kitchen scenario, providing real-time feedback on environmental impact and displaying consequences via a disaster room. In a study with 36 university students in Singapore, the approach produced significant improvements in objective knowledge, perceived confidence, and intentions to adopt sustainable behaviors, supporting the premise that experiential VR can enhance climate literacy. The work contributes a concrete VR learning design, empirical evidence of learning gains, and a framework for expanding immersive climate education to broader populations and topics.

Abstract

Climate change education often struggles to bridge the perception gap between everyday actions and their long-term environmental consequences. In response, we developed Meltdown, an immersive virtual reality (VR) escape room that simulates a grocery shopping and food waste management experience to educate university students in Singapore about sustainable consumption. The game emphasizes sustainable food choices and disposal practices, combining interactive elements and narrative feedback to promote behavioral change. Through a user study with 36 university students, we observed statistically significant improvements in participants objective knowledge, perceived confidence, and intention to adopt sustainable behaviors. Our results suggest that experiential VR environments can enhance climate education by making abstract environmental concepts more immediate and personally relevant.

Meltdown: Bridging the Perception Gap in Sustainable Food Behaviors Through Immersive VR

TL;DR

Meltdown addresses the perception gap in climate education by using an immersive VR escape room that simulates everyday grocery shopping and food-waste disposal to teach sustainable consumption. Built in Unity, the game guides participants through a supermarket and kitchen scenario, providing real-time feedback on environmental impact and displaying consequences via a disaster room. In a study with 36 university students in Singapore, the approach produced significant improvements in objective knowledge, perceived confidence, and intentions to adopt sustainable behaviors, supporting the premise that experiential VR can enhance climate literacy. The work contributes a concrete VR learning design, empirical evidence of learning gains, and a framework for expanding immersive climate education to broader populations and topics.

Abstract

Climate change education often struggles to bridge the perception gap between everyday actions and their long-term environmental consequences. In response, we developed Meltdown, an immersive virtual reality (VR) escape room that simulates a grocery shopping and food waste management experience to educate university students in Singapore about sustainable consumption. The game emphasizes sustainable food choices and disposal practices, combining interactive elements and narrative feedback to promote behavioral change. Through a user study with 36 university students, we observed statistically significant improvements in participants objective knowledge, perceived confidence, and intention to adopt sustainable behaviors. Our results suggest that experiential VR environments can enhance climate education by making abstract environmental concepts more immediate and personally relevant.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 51 sections, 9 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Current Solutions
  3. Our Solution
  4. Contributions
  5. Organization of the Next Sections
  6. Related Works
  7. Using VR Supermarket for Nutritional Research and Education: A Scoping Review cristiana_2025
  8. Cleanopolis VR tan_nurul‐asna_2023
  9. Data-driven VR Applications to Visualize the Effects of Climate Change 9815983 Huang03062021
  10. Design of 3D Virtual Reality in the Metaverse for Environmental Conservation Education Based on Cognitive Theory lo_tsai_2022
  11. Learning real-life cognitive abilities in a novel 360°-virtual reality supermarket: a neuropsychological study of healthy participants and patients with epilepsy grewe_2013
  12. Distinction from Existing Work
  13. VR System Design & Implementation
  14. Main Features
  15. Player Interactions
  16. ...and 36 more sections

Figures (9)

  • Figure 1: Current Actions Taken by Participants to Combat Climate Change
  • Figure 2: Familiarity with Large-scale Climate Efforts
  • Figure 3: Participants' Awareness of Singapore-Specific Climate Policies
  • Figure 4: Participant Selections: Environmental Impact Factors Before and After VR Experience
  • Figure 5: Participant Selections: Characteristics of Sustainable Food Packaging Before and After VR Experience
  • ...and 4 more figures