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IMPROVING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF EVERYDAY CHEMICAL EXPOSURES THROUGH A 3-D ONLINE COMPUTER-SIMULATED EDUCATIONAL GAME
Impact/Purpose:
Numerous health problems and human diseases have been found to be directly or indirectly connected to chemical exposures. For most individuals, the damage of harmful chemicals is difficult to discern because they come in minute doses. Educating people of possible chemical exposures in their daily lives is the first step to improve public health, which is one of the most important factors contributing to the prosperity of both our planet and our society. We propose to apply computer gaming technology in chemical exposure education. Second Life, a 3-D online virtual world supporting avatar-based communications and a wide spectrum of online activities, will be used as a tool for game design. Second Life will also provide a simulated environment for future game players, where they can spend a virtual day and come across various chemical exposures. The objective of the project is to bring public attention to chemical exposures through an enjoyable experience, to improve the capabilities of people to recognize the major toxins and their health problems, and ultimately to learn how to prevent exposures. The game will be demonstrated to Athens High School students and teachers, and then be used for their classes. To evaluate the outcome of the project, the project team will design surveys for Athens High School students, which include not only questions on basic knowledge of toxins, but also inquiries regarding satisfactoriness of the game.
Description:
The game we have developed is named Virtual P3 Game, where P3 is interpreted as “play, participation, and protection”, which implies that the game is designed and played in a virtual world and the goal of the game is to promote public participation in the environmental health movement and to protect the health of all lives on the planet. Virtual P3 adopts the form of Monopoly. However, it is significantly different from Monopoly in two major aspects: it is a 3-D computer simulated game instead of a 2-D board game; it advocates environmental profits instead of economic profits. The framework of the game has been successfully established on the open source of SL (Second Life) platform and OpenSim server which is used for creating a SL like virtual world.
As the experiment stage of the project, the implementation of Phase I project has been very successful. This is not only because that Phase I has been an valuable learning experience for all team members, but also because Virtual P3 Game has gained uniformly positive feedbacks from local high school students. The fact that most students became more aware of everyday chemical exposures after playing Virtual P3 Game confirms the effectiveness of the game as an educational tool on chemical exposure issues.