Worldwide Video Gaming for Clean Water
an article by Tony Dominski

I am not a gamer. So I was very surprised to emotionally connect with a web video game about youth working for sanitation and clean water.

The game entitled "Water Alert", is available on the internet. It was designed by Donna Goodman for UNICEF to empower Third World youth and their communities to implement clean water and sanitation. Playing the game gives you practice in how a community gets organized. Game activities include public education, project planning, financing and technology installation. The slant is towards cooperative action with girls taking an equal role with the boys.

"Water Alert" was fascinating. The characters are well drawn and attractive with great voiceovers [in French or Spanish and English]. The situations involved life and death decisions which demanded courageous and intelligent action. These decisions impacted the critical issues of latrines, flooding, droughts, wells, water pumps, and stream ecology. As my own character in the game, I shared in community decisions and got positive feedback for my efforts.

In speaking with the game's author, Ms. Goodman, I learned that she had papers and charts strewn all through her living room in her efforts to portray all the scenarios involved in water and sanitation planning. In "Water Alert" she has succeeded in creating a sophisticated portrait of the kinds of situations a community must face, and how youth with different talents and interests can step forward to help their communities.

Try the game and you will be surprised how it engages you in critical environmental problems now faced by hundreds of millions worldwide.

If you know of any video or Internet games that teach the principles of a culture of peace, we would appreciate if you could give us the information (or an Internet link ) as a reply to the question on the right of this page.

DISCUSSION

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Video and Internet Games
that teach the principles of a culture of peace

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SCHOOLS AND PEACE EDUCATION

Latest reader comment:

CPNN has received the following request for a review of the Force More Powerful Computer game :

Sujet : [psysr-pe-announce] A Force More Powerful - Computer game
Date : 3/3/06 7:49:38 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: llnelson@calpoly.edu (Linden Nelson)
Sender: psysr-pe-announce@yahoogroups.com
Reply-to: psysr-pe-announce-owner@yahoogroups.com
To: psysr-pe-announce@yahoogroups.com (psysr-pe-announce@yahoogroups.com)

This looks good. I have ordered it, but have not yet received it. The resources on their web site would also probably be useful in teaching about nonviolence. If anyone has experienced this game and is willing to share a short review with this listserv, please let me know.

-Linden Nelson <llnelson@calpoly.edu>

This report was posted on June 8, 2006. The moderator is David.

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