Simulation for Environmental Exposure Education (S3E): A Serious Game Platform for Environmental Health Literacy

ABSTRACT Simulation for Environmental Exposure Education (S3E) Studies have documented cumulative health effects of chemical and nonchemical exposures on children that can impact them for a lifetime. In-home environmental exposure risks are particularly impactful on health because children spend 80-90% of their time indoors, and impact disproportionately falls on disadvantaged youth. These environmental exposures have been shown to increase inflammation, asthma, lead poisoning, cancer and a host of other conditions. In addition, just a subset of these environmentally mediated diseases in US children is estimated to cost $76.6 billion per year. To provide the knowledge and skills to address these challenges and to inspire awareness and action, young people need to develop their environmental health literacy. This project proposes to do that through completing development and evaluation of a mobile serious game, S3E, to improve environmental health literacy among middle-school age youth by scaffolding learning and communication about toxic environmental exposures occurring indoors in familiar environments. The game architecture was built in Phase I using a 2.5D platformer-style architecture with a simulation of socio-physical dynamics. Players move, interact, communicate, and take action in a virtual experience to avoid environmental exposure and sickness, injury, or death for others. As the player moves throughout the game, they have access to data about the environment. The game has embedded real-time displays that inform students of simulated sensor readings for contaminant levels in air, water, soil, surfaces, and bodies of humans and pets. Increasing adverse health in response to these contaminants is represented by animated acute symptoms in players and non-player characters (family, pets, etc.), such as dizziness, nausea, coughing, difficulty breathing, or unconsciousness. In the process of playing the game, students discover customized solutions to reduce exposure (opening a window, removing a heater, etc.) and build models and mechanisms of environmental exposure. The game allows customization of hazards by the teacher to reflect community hazards and multiplayer options. The content will be aligned with Environmental Health Literacy and Science and Engineering practice in the Next Generation Science Standards to facilitate integration of the game into formal educational settings. In this Phase II project we will: develop equations for each environmental hazard to ensure data driven accurate in-game simulations; complete development of the game in mobile and online formats with all specified environmental hazard content areas, utilizing youth for iterative feedback and play testing; create a teacher portal for customization of the game based on teacher/community interests and needs; and conduct a randomized clinical trial to assess the impact of the game on environmental health literacy and action.