The course author's goal was to create an interactive and illustrative online "textbook" to show the impacts that climate change has on the earth now and in the future. Based on that, the text-first format worked well.
Students begin by reading text accompanied by lots of pictures, which were added using the H5P slide sorter that permits students to flip through several pictures embedded within sections of text. As students progress through the course, they encounter embedded videos, Knowledge Check questions, and Activate Your Learning exercises. Together, these elements keep students engaged with the content and help them to build knowledge as they go. Knowledge Checks, interactive questions developed with H5P, allow students to check their understanding of the topics covered in each section. The Activate Your Learning exercises are more involved, requiring students to take some kind of action beyond answering simple questions. These actions include visiting a website to search for a topic, gathering information, reading an article and writing a short essay, or running a simulation. Students work their way through the content by reading, looking at pictures, and completing any Knowledge Checks and Activate Your Learning activities. They then take a lesson quiz and either complete the lab or work on part of their capstone project.