As a global society we face unprecedented challenges related to environmental sustainability. Turn Up the Heat! is a collaborative board game that provides families with a playful context for discussing household heating and cooling systems and tradeoffs related to energy, comfort, and money. Through a tablet computer interface, the game offers all players (children and adults) the opportunity to set a thermostat on their turns. By allowing families to see the immediate effects of temperature settings with both a manual and programmable thermostat interface (Figure 2), we confront usability issues and misconceptions around residential thermostat use. We also examine the role of board games as a cultural form through which to foster whole-family interaction and learning around sophisticated and potentially difficult concepts related to energy consumption.
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