By Helen de la Maza
On October 13, 2003, my Inside the Outdoors colleague, Stephanie Smith, and I met with Bryan Mundell, PhD. He is the President of Adventerra Games (www.adventerragames.com) and the Founder and president of green games (www.greengames.org). The vision is that the Millenium Generation will become as informed and passionate about protecting and cleaning up the natural environment as they currently are about Pokemon, Magic trading cards, and Harry Potter. The mission is to support the development, production, [and] distribution of the most exciting environmental games that educate and enlighten the world's youth about taking individual action to solve local and global environmental problems.
They hope to create all major categories of games, including board games, card games, role-playing adventure games, personal computer games, and video games. One of their strategies is to encourage green foundations and corporate philanthropic departments to sponsor the production and distribution of the best new environmental games so that environmental science teachers will always have plenty of exciting, interactive didactic materials to help them win the battle for their students' hearts and minds, and parents will have a fun alternative to buying games of conquest and violence. The company currently has seven games in the production pipeline, including one ready for sale and two in the prototype format. Since Green Games (based in Ithaca, NY) is a non-profit 501(c)3, they will be working to obtain financial assistance for the development and production of the games. Adventerra Games, based in Italy (where Bryan currently lives), is the mother company and will complete direct sales on the web.
Bryan showed Stephanie and I three of the games: Watergame (for elementary), Energy Conservation (for middle school), and Clean-Up for high school students and adults. All of the games were fantastic, requiring critical thinking and problem solving skills, the ability to work cooperatively/for the community as well as competitively, and taught and reinforced important science and environmental education concepts. Students will benefit from these games because they can learn content within a fun context, and do so independently (without a teacher). These games will be perfect for down time (for instance at an outdoor science school), or as a learning center (at an elementary school), or as an independent school/home activity. The Watergame (the others may also) include a teacher's guide with other classroom lessons/activities. They are connected to the National Science Education Standards.
Bryan is looking for funding partners so he can provide these games to teachers/educators for free. In the meantime, they can be purchased at www.adventerragames.com He would like to provide teacher workshops to train educators in the use of these games.
In California, Real Goods/Solar Living Institute has expressed interest in working with him. A couple high schools (one in New York, one in San Francisco) will be field testing the three existing games, as will we at Inside the Outdoors at our Outdoor Science School and select Orange County teachers connected through the CREEC network. Please spread the word. Bryan is interested in created partnerships with CREEC, etc., and writing grants together so that all will benefit.
