Future Worlds is a game-based learning environment about environmental sustainability for science museums and classrooms. With a focus on children ages 9–12, Future Worlds integrates game-based learning and interactive surface displays to enable hands-on explorations of sustainability. Learners solve environmental problem scenarios and explore the impacts of alternate environmental decisions in a 3D simulated world. The effects of learners’ decisions are realized in real-time through vibrant 3D graphics and sound, which are accompanied by narrated explanations by an animated pedagogical agent.

Future Worlds has been pilot tested with learners at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and it is available to the public in the museum's Visual World Investigate Lab. Future Worlds has also been pilot tested for classroom use with middle school students in Ingram, Texas.  In addition to serving as an educational resource, Future Worlds is a research testbed for state-of-the-art multimodal learning analytics technologies, providing a platform for data-rich studies of learning and engagement. Preliminary findings from pilot studies at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences indicate that learners show significant increases in sustainability understanding, as well as high levels of engagement, from interactions with Future Worlds. Research results from the project have been disseminated at national and international conferences.