Monthly Archives: June 2014

How much have you saved?

Captain P is my Habitat user name. I have 3268 Habitat points which places me in 45^th position on the leader board. A couple of weeks back I received an email from 7 year old Madeline telling me she loved the game and she was top of the leader board with over 5000 points.

I can’t see Madeline from my position but I am sure she has racked up many more points by now.

When players sign in we are all asked to sign onto the honour system by ticking a box that says we promise to tell the truth about our real world missions. So there is no way for us to verify if players are lying about what they have done in the real world but I am able to tell you about what I have achieved in the month I have been playing. I have tried to be as accurate about my behaviours as possible and according to my profile I have saved:

–       240 buckets of water,
–       103.8 feet of land, and
–       5181 balloons of carbon.

The calculations of my real world behaviours

So what does this mean? It is the team at Integrated Sustainable Analysis at Sydney University who have up with the algorithms and our measurement tools.

The number of buckets represents the litres of water based on an averaged sized 10 litre bucket or 2.64 gallons.

Buckets of water represent the number of litres of water you have saved

The number of footprints represents the area of land that a player has NOT disturbed by their actions. The measurement is based on a typical human footprint area of 300 cm2 or 47 square-inches.

Represents the area of land you have NOT disturbed

The number of balloons represents the volume of greenhouse gas emissions measured in terms of volume of C02 gas, 1 kg or 2.2 pounds.

The number of balloons represents the volume of greenhouse gas emmissions

Remember all of these actions are based around rewarding players when they are under the national average.

So if we add all of my measurements up I have saved:

–       2,400 Litres of water or 576 Gallons of water
–       31,140 cm2 or 4,878.6 square inches of land
–       5181 kg or 11,398.2 pounds of carbon

I could keep calculating to tell you that each gallon of gas you put in a car produces 14 pounds of carbon dioxide. My behaviours equate to about the equivalent savings of over 800 gallons of gas.

Although we can never verify the actions of our players, right now we have a couple of thousand kids playing and collectively they have saved:

Community Saved Water Buckets: 32703.48

Community Saved Soccer Fields: 882965.09

Community Saved Light bulbs: 2935397.98

And who said kids can’t make a difference? It is going to take top down and bottom up approaches to address global issues like climate change and we need our kids to know they can be part of the solution.

We are keen to know what you have saved and what that equates to. Please share your profile with us on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/habitatthegame

To learn more about how Sydney University came to calculate these savings go to our previous blog post:

https://habitatthegame.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/incentivising-players-to-reduce-their-footprint-by-25-below-the-national-average/

Posted in Algorithms, Curriculum, Sydney University

Feedback for Habitat the Game

Jun 23

Posted by habitatthegame

Habitat has enjoyed it’s first month in the hands of players young and old.

We have had a lot of feedback from parents and players. See some of our favourite comments below:

Sally mother of Lachlan aged 9
Lachie found Habitat on my phone, he loves it!! When he gets a turn on my phone he’s choosing Habitat over Minecraft!

Mat father of Alex aged 8
Given that he only has about 30 minutes a day on an ipad, habitat held its own against games like clumsy ninja, and lego star wars for play time.

Jane mother of Will aged 9
Will loves Habitat. He has taught his siblings and neighbours how to play. Will has a life’s amount of ‘screen time’ each week but he manages to check on his bear – and if he doesn’t his brother or sister do! It has been great to see some of Habitat’s lessons put into action in our home – shorter showers, lights turned out and a keenness to recycle their old toys and clothes.

Olivia aged 7
I liked taking care of the bear and feeding it so I knew the bear was healthy and could have a baby. I liked the swimming in the Arctic looking for fish.

Krissie mother of three
Habitat allows a child to imagine and create with a positive environmental focus. This is the best app of it’s genre. It is a positive and challenging experience for children. It encourages children to think about the environment and the positive choices they can make as independent thinkers.

Madeline aged 7
I LOOOOOOOOVE your game. (Today at my brothers soccer my mum said do you want to play on my phone I said no I,d like to play on dads phone can you guess why?)
I soooooooooooo like your game I am the leader. I have 4594 points already.