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2009 H2.0 Mike Malinics & Ian Schofield

[WHITE PAPERS] The summary of work for years 2008-2009. Includes documentation on research, surveys, and company structure.

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Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................. ...................3 Problem............................................................................................. .........................4 Solution........................................................................................... ...........................5 Game Basics...................................................................................................... .........6 Research............................................................................................................... ......7 Research: The Housatonic River.................................................................................9 H2.0’s Organization................................................................................. .................10 Company and Game Names.....................................................................................11 Citations........................................................................................... ........................12

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Introduction Here at H2.0, we try to combine two things: fun and learning. This is why we have come up with the game “Effusion.” We hope

Company Name: this game, set on a beautiful river, which is increasingly being H2.0

flooded with trash and waste, will teach today’s youth, and the

Slogan: Knowledge games players the importance of having a clean and pristine Flows

environment. We have looked at what middle school-age kids

Game: Effusion

actually know about the environment, and water pollution, and

Focus: Water Pollution have tried to tie the needed learning into a good story therefore giving children an incentive and reason to play. We are hoping that these young gamers will have fun and the need to prevent pollution will be embedded into their minds.

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This obvious water pollution in India is what H2.0 is trying to avoid all over the world.

Quick Fact: 1% of Earth’s water is drinkable, and pollution threatens it daily

Photo courtesy of extinctearth.org

Problem Eighty percent of our Earth is covered in water, and only one percent of that is drinkable water. Where do we get this water Gaming from? is a great way Most of this drinkable water is stored within aquifers; the to help kids learn about rest is purified ground water. However, while water can be the environment and go Green purified and recycled, the supply of drinkable water is threatened by pollutants ranging from oil to litter. Going Green is a growing trend, as people strive to not only save the environment from global warming, but to protect nature from pollution as the human population grows. As time passes it grows clearer that while the adults of today act try to protect our water supply from pollution, it will ultimately be a job for the adults of tomorrow. To get across this message, we are 234 Judd Rd. Southbury, CT 06488 flows.com

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White Papers H2.0 canrelying help students on gaming to reach our audience. Gaming provides an get involved in stopping entertaining way for children to acquire new knowledge and it water pollution leaves a lasting impact. However, while games are interesting, not all games are able to get across a message behind the entertainment. Here at H2.0, we believe we’ve found the solution to get the next generation actively involved in saving our water from pollution.

Solution Is there a simple solution to stopping pollution? No. We at H2.0 feel that while changes will take time, we need to work with the By instilling healthy habits,next Effusion generation can to make sure they don’t face even worse help gamers learn how problems than we do now. But in order to make a real difference to stop pollution and in a young child’s every day life, learning new habits needs to apply this in real world provide fun while giving the child something they can apply to situations real world situations. By creating a game that provides a fun learning environment, we are helping children instill into their minds the importance of not polluting and to make proper choices that will save ecosystems from destruction. While most games want children to learn by providing with a long list of information which they have to read, our Effusion them teaches through game playing, is simple and to the point. By playing Effusion, our keeping the game fun gamers learn how to save the environment through action, thus yet educational at the helping them understand the damage a few pieces of litter can same time do to the water and the environment. Keeping our game simple ensures people will want to play it over and over again, thus reinforcing everything they have learned.

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Game Basics Effusion is an innovative game designed using MIT’s program “Scratch.” Our game is based on a fisherman going to his The player helps Fisherman Jones pick up pollution by dragging and dropping it into the appropriate bins

favorite fishing hole on his boat and discovering that it is As the game goesThis on, makes fisherman Jones angry when he’s fishing on polluted! the background his boat gets Bantz, so he decides to do something about it. Our lighter and the levels game is a drag and drop game, where the player becomes Mr. get harder Jones, and uses their fishing hook (mouse) to hook (click on) and reel in the trash (drag) to his boat. This game is simple, enjoyable, and it is appropriate for almost all ages. It starts out with a murky background, depicting the effects of pollution on the environment. As trash gets picked up, the background begins to lighten up, showing that every little bit makes a difference. When a piece of trash is brought aboard the boat, the pollution meter on the left changes to show how much more trash has to be picked up to move onto the next level. The game gets harder as time goes on, as the trash will start to move faster as the current speeds up making it much more difficult to grab all the trash and move it to your boat.

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Research When it came to the making of Effusion, we felt the need for a solid storyline that would not only make the game entertaining, but

We surveyed local middle school students to find out how much they knew about water pollution

educational as well. In the early stages of creating our game we thought about the type of game we wanted to make based on our own personal experiences with online games. We wanted to create a game that is fun and addictive, which could change the habits of our gamers to not just think Green, but live Green. The age range of middle school students and up was chosen 234 Judd Rd. Southbury, CT 06488 flows.com

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White Papers because when children are younger it is easier to learn new facts and habits. Middle school children are also beginning to form their own ideas and opinions, making this age range opportune for understanding that water pollution needs to be stopped now. But how can an educational game be entertaining without overdoing the educational aspect? To create this perfect balance, leading members of H2.0 journeyed to Rochambeau Middle School in Southbury, Connecticutto conduct a survey. Within this survey, students were asked multiple choice questions which briefly addressed questions such as “Who does water pollution affect?” and “Which issue is more important?” Rather than just ending the survey with these quick questions, we had our participants expand on their choices to give us an idea of how well they understood the concepts of water pollution and global warming. It turns out that in fact all of the students surveyed had witnessed some form of water pollution and many had ideas of how to stop it. Thus, with these facts in mind, the game design team at H2.0 decided to create a game where the learning would take place through interaction rather than just reading. This visual learning experience helps create habits we hope to instill within our gamers throughout their lifestyle, while providing a moderately fast pace gaming experience.

Research: The Housatonic River 234 Judd Rd. Southbury, CT 06488 flows.com

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The Housatonic River is one of the main water arteries in the state of Connecticut, and when the state was being founded in the early 1600’s it served as a magnet for townships due to the ease of life it brought. Later in America’s history these towns become Mill-towns, with huge cloth The Housatonic has making factories been polluted over using the water power to run the machines. This may centuries local havefrom helped bolster the economy, but it did no favors for the river; it was Danbury hat-making now polluted. One major contaminant that poses a serious health risk to businesses humans is the mercury that seeped into the river out of the Danbury hat making businesses, which still lingers in

the

water today. In a

study

undertaken by Wesleyan University they found that “The

Still

River sediment The river is polluted with a large amount of samples have Hg mercury

concentrations that range from 1000 to 60,000 ppb (parts per billion) Hg. The highest Hg concentrations are found in fine-grained, organic-rich sediments past the town of Brookfield, which was a secondary hat-making center after Danbury. A core from the northern sector of the Still River shows a Hg pollution profile with values up to 100,000 ppb” This problem is really put into perspective when told that the average mercury pollution

GE had to pay forin Connecticut is a mere 200-500 ppb. While the Mercury elsewhere polluting the problem may seem bad, there are still worse things in the Housatonic Housatonic, which went suchand as polychlorinated biphenyls, more commonly known as towardsRiver, the EPA for contamination clean-up PCB’s. For years General Electric (GE) dumped these harmful chemicals

into the Housatonic River from its manufacturing plant in Pittsfield Massachusetts. However, in September 1998, GE was forced to pay for its crimes, to the tune of 200 million dollars. That money will go primarily to the Federal government’s Environmental protection agency, and the US

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White Papers The Housatonic shows Service, for cleaning up the contamination, and Fish and Wildlife that pollution is replacing the damaged organisms. everywhere, whether What does we want to believe it orthe polluting of the Housatonic Riverhave do with H2.0? not The river helps demonstrate that pollution is everywhere, and that water

pollution can have a great impact on the environment. People often like to put issues aside that do not seem to affect them directly, but the polluting of the Housatonic helps people understand that water pollution is a large issue and it must be stopped to save the Earth for future generations.

H2.0’s Organization While most of our competition has one leader and the rest of its members are followers, H2.0 tried something different this year. In past years, Pomperaug High School’s CTIA companies have H2.0 meets once a been organized like the rest, and have seen many problems week, but its leaders come along meet on Mondays to as they tried to complete their products. To remedy make huge decisions many of the at problems, this year a new hierarchy of leadership the Officers’ wasmeeting created. At the top we have our President, Phil Simmons, who oversees all of the company meetings, assigns tasks to other members, and makes sure that everybody is staying on track with our goals. Our Vice President, Tim Baird, oversees all of the company’s meetings as well, and takes over in the event that our President is absent. H2.0 also has a secretary, Joe Addonizio, who writes important information that comes up during the meetings. Our treasurer, Zack Sniffen, oversees our funds as we try to promote our company. We then have our department heads: Lucas Landaeta (Head of Game Design), Kori Taylor (Head of Marketing), and Michael Malinics (Head of Research). The rest of the members of our company have set roles, but often find themselves doing tasks for several 234 Judd Rd. Southbury, CT 06488 flows.com

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White Papers Phil Simmons: President

departments. All of the members of H2.0 meet on Thursdays,

Tim Baird: Vice President where important issues are brought up, and essential work is done during our work days. Because we have so many people, Joe Addonizio: Secretary we often find that we can not come to a consensus. To solve Zack Sniffen: Treasurer this, every Monday there are Officers’ meetings where the Kori Taylor: Marketing President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Department Lucas Landaeta: Game

Heads meet to discuss the important issues within the company, set deadlines, and make final decisions that could not be made at a general meeting.

Company and Game Names At the start of our company’s meetings, we first began by having all of our members write reports researching major green themes. We then voted on all of these, and came out with the topic of water pollution which we began to focus our project on. Because our company is trying to tie the Web 2.0 theme and ideas with preventing water pollution, we combined the formula for water, H2o and Web 2.0 to create H2.0. After searching through Google, Yahoo!, Ask, and MSN search engines, we concluded that this name was not patented and was available for our use.

Citations Binninger, Jerry. "What on Earth Do You Know About Water?". EPA. 11/14/2008 . 234 Judd Rd. Southbury, CT 06488 flows.com

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Jallow, Billo. "MERCURY IN HOUSATONIC RIVER AND STILL RIVER SEDIMENTS: A LEGACY OF DANBURY (CT) HATMAKING". Weslyan University. 3/26/2009 . Baver, Jay. "Save the Housatonic". On the Water. 3/26/2009 .

"GENERAL ELECTRIC AGREES TO $200 MILLION SETTLEMENT TO CLEAN UP THE HOUSATONIC RIVER". United States Department of Justice. 3/26/2009 .

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