River cleaner : a game for teaching aquatic ecosystem conservation via garbage management

Abstract

News about pollution and solid waste destructively entangling the cities and water environment, e.g., rivers, has strikingly been coming to light from time to time. As it is irrefutable that humans’ behaviors are essentially root causes of the pollution related problems owing to carelessness and insufficient level of care and attention towards the environment, an attempt to fix such problems is obligatory and must be initiated, principally by promoting self-discipline and highlighting the significance of environmental conservation and deliberately relaying the messages to the people. This project aims to develop a game that can effectively equip people to be more knowledgeable about waste management and conservation of the water environment. Given that games can be easily accessed by people from all walks of life, hopefully, the game I created is able to successfully and ultimately serve the aforementioned purposes. IMPLICATION OF THE THEMATIC PAPER: This project includes a user testing of the game I created, during which observation and feedback gathering are made. The results reveal problems and lessons that can be used to improve my game design to have better development and educational potential in the future. I am also able to learn a way to encourage and build people's conscience toward the environmental topic.