Chapter 7/ Alternate Blog Post

Chapter 7                            Alternative blog post

For this week, I have decided to discuss Operation Climate Control. This is a game created in the UK that allows students to learn about the effects of our everyday lives on our climate, and ways that we can reduce our negative impact on the world around us. What I really enjoyed about this game is that is does not simply tell students that we are negatively affecting our climate, it thoroughly describes what are the different reasons why things such as transportation, and energy affect the climate, and it allows students to decide what changes can be made to help reduce climate pollution. The purpose of the game is for students to decide on environmental policies in Europe, which would then impact their environment so they can see what the different effects are.

I would definitely use this game in a middle or high-school level science class. I would introduce this game before starting my lesson on transportation emissions and climate change. Ideally, each student would be given 20-30 minutes to create their own environment based on their current knowledge of the environment. The game allows students to create a password so that they can save their progress and access it later. After their first experience with this game, students would be taught about the different types of transportation, and the new technologies that are being used to reduce pollution such as electric cars, hybrids, etc. They will be able to refer to the information that they were exposed to in the game and use that to relate to the lesson that is being taught by the instructor. After the lesson, students should have a better understanding of the effects of transportation on climate control. I would then ask students to play the game again either in class or at home and compare their before and after environments. The objective would be for students to understand that through proper knowledge of pollution and new technologies that are being created, society can help reduce pollution.

This game not only keeps students engaged but it helps them learn a lesson that would not be as easy to explain without a visual aid. The game also provides links to different websites that explore other aspects of climate, including other games that students can use as a follow up to climate control. Students can also compare their environments with each other and vote on who was able to reduce the most amount of pollution. Another great feature of this game is that every action students take cost money, therefore, they cannot take the easy way out and just make every form of transportation extremely energy efficient. This causes the students to think about what they feel is most important, and what changes would have the greater impact while staying on budget, which is similar to the problems faced in today’s society.

I have begun a game of my own which can be accessed here. The password to access my game is fraga, I encourage you all to take a moment and create your own game, you will definitely get hooked!