Conservation Game Challenge Plugs Kids Into Nature
Allegheny Front
Usually parents turn off the video games to get their kids outside. But a game design company called Games for Change is combining the two with a challenge for kids to create original video games that focus on wildlife conservation — specifically pollinators.
Here is the prompt:
Research how pollination works, the interactions and adaptations between plants and pollinators, the role they play in our ecosystem and why they are in decline on a global level. Create a game that teaches your peers about why pollinators are a critical part of our world and what we can do to save them.
The contest is a partnership with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. Taiji Nelson is a naturalist educator there and says games are a way to plug into nature.
“It’s another way to make nature fun,” he says. “Video game design really isn’t my background, but it’s another way for me to think about nature and think about it in a different way.”