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At 12:35, the last students in MIT Course: 1.725J (Chemicals in the Environment: Fate and Transport) enter the classroom. They’re each handed a PDA running Environmental Detectives, as well as GPS and BlueTooth software. Students have been divided into 5 groups:
As groups launch their PDAs, they are presented a unique cover story, custom-tailored to their role. Environmentalists learn that a local watershed has become polluted with mercury after a class of students reports some bizarre readings during a routine examination of a local watershed. Later, the EPA learns of increased levels of mercuric chloride through routine inspection of a major river in the area. As fish begin washing ashore, a hostile press learns of this catastrophe, and immediately implicates a textile facility further down the river. As concerned parents start checking kids into a local hospital, the stakes are raised further. Scientists hired by the corporations deal with angry Emails and Instant messages from and concerned citizenry. Through gathering field data, processing data, and interviewing virtual witnesses, players learn that this calamity has been caused by spillage of mercuric chloride, a hazardous material that is used in a variety of energy, manufacturing, and health care-related processes. Mercuric Chloride is extremely harmful, if not fatal. Time is ticking, and players need contain the spread of this harmful chemical throughout the Boston area. Each player has a specific goal. Each involves identifying the toxin given the readings, finding point source of the contaminant, and making a case against one of the perpetrators. Each group also has individual goals, such as containing the effects of the disaster, garnering public support for additional laws, or or concealing elict operations. Each team must choose how to use its limited time and funds. Where should they collect data to identify the source of the pollution? Should they set up probes up and down the Charles River? Should they pay to have informants taken to the doctor? Which symptoms should they pay attention to, and which ones should they ignore. Red herrings in the form of other environmental contaminants, and people sick with other diseases will obscure their efforts. Environmental Detectives combines the dramatic appeal of Erin Brokovich with the pedagogical value of inquiry-based learning exercises. Environmental Detectives allows players to experiment with dangerous toxic, radioactive, or volatile which would be dangerous to do in most classrooms. At the end of the game, no one "right" answer is not released, although players learn how many people got infected or sick and what the resultant public opinion is. Players themselves will need to decide what they think caused the outbreak of mercuric chloride and where it started. Environmental Detectives is designed to be used in an environmental education context. Students learn basic investigative skills (observation, hypothesis testing, data gathering, data analysis, and data reporting) that are a part of any environmental education curriculum. In addition, there are opportunities for students to learn how chemicals are transported through the environment, how global chemical systems work, and how environmental toxins are neutralized. We think that Environmental Detectives will be a fun, engaging, and educationally powerful game. However, its greatest educational value may come not through playing the augmented reality simulation, but in the scenario editing tools that are shipped with the game. Players will have the ability to create their own simulations of environmental disasters, setting the type of contaminant, the effects of the contaminant, the rate of spread of the contaminant, and the potential effects of its interaction with the public.
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