Online Tools and Games

Online interactive tools and games can be used via Internet or mobile apps and such tools should be easy to use and interesting to general audience and could be used e.g. in schools in teaching. Below few examples are introduced in more detail:  carbon tree (http://www.hiilipuu.fi), which is an online tool to learn about photosynthesis and respiration of a tree; Deep Sea Spy (http://deepseaspy.ifremer.fr), which is to raise awareness towards species living in deep sea and supporting greatly the work done in EMSO RI and serious gaming competition for school kids supported by LifeWatch (https://www.lifewatch.eu/serious-games). One very appealing topic is citizen science, were online tools could be used to involve citizens into the Global Challenges. For example, an app for smartphones that is useful to collect information for multiple purposes. All of the mentioned tools and games require funding to be developed and maintained, but can potentially reach global audiences. However, to attract people to use these online tools and participate in the competitions require advertisement and good connection to schools.

RI can organize online gaming competitions like those LifeWatch is coordinating and ENVRIplus project used. The competition can be based on a scientific gaming, whose content and target audiences can vary. Serious games are one of the most interactive tools to teach young people, in an engaging way about the key subjects of the RI (marine, ecology, biology etc).

Advantages: Potentially hugely important ways to communicate and get wide visibility for the RI. They can have educational aspects and create positive atmosphere towards RI. Good way to reach school children and their parents, educate them on RI related topics and to get visibility. 

Challenges: Require significant investments. The online games are hard to make successful and need special attention to gain interest. Can be challenging to engage people to use the tool or game.  Often tools and games need simplification of the scientific facts and results. Need of very motivated development team. 

Resources: Development team needs to have knowledge both on the subject and technical solutions. In planning competitions for school children RI needs to understand the school year schedule and collaborate with the schools which requires involvement from schools (teacher and students).  

Recommendation: If possible considering the requirements, these activities are of high interest. Possibility of direct interaction with the public is invaluable. 

Game example: Deep sea spy.   Ifremer (a French institute that undertakes research and expert assessments to advance knowledge on the oceans and their resources, monitor the marine environment and foster the sustainable development of maritime activities.) in association with a company (Noveltis, Labège, France) has developed a web-based application linked with a structured database. The software is built as a game with dedicated missions. The goal of each mission is to annotate a series of images extracted from archived video sequences coming from deep-sea observatories. The annotation tool has been developed and was officially launched in March 2017 through French media and international scientists' network (Interridge, Deep-sea biology society). The first public mission attracted more than four hundred active participants and led to the annotation of more than fifteen thousand images.  The Deep-sea Spy project invites to discover hydrothermal fauna and participate in the Deep-sea Environment Lab’s research. The spy consists of informational part and a game where the user needs to identify the species appearing on a photograph. The game is available on two language, English and French. On the website you can find educational material that can be used for your own personal interest or in the framework of a class project: educational leaflets, educational booklets, links. The visual guidelines associated with the tool, including a logo, color codes and a dedicated font has been developed by a graphic designer. From the admin webpage, the game administrators can have an overview of the main statistics of the application and ongoing mission including number of images annotated, number of users per week, month, over the mission and globally.