Green Boardgames

When playing a board game do you ever think about how much material is wasted to make that game? Or how all that material is wasted once you throw it away? If you do then that thought can be down sized because there are new games out that use recycled products. I found this article http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/monopoly-with-carbon-credits-7-green-board-games-for-the-new-generation.php?campaign=th_rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29&utm_content=Google+Reader that talks about these games. These are were made to encourage help to use teamwork, cooperation, and sustainability in an eco-friendly based board game.  Through this article there are seven games mentioned.

1.Earthopoly ($30.00) The purpose of this game is to fine-tune your green cred. This is odne by buying carbon credits that you use buy clean air. While playing this game you learn about nature and climate regions. The great thing about this game is that when your ready to throw this game out and get a new one everything in this game can be recycled.  I decided to look up more information on Earthopoly and found this website http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37005/earthopoly and it gives more details about the game. The game is for 2-6 player, and the playing time is 120 minutes. This game was published in 2008 by Late for the Sky Production Company.
2.Head1Liners ($38.00) For this game a person is to make up a headline that goes with a photo and the score they get from the other players tells them how much to advance. The cards are recycled paper and soy-based inks, tokens are recycled glass and wood, and the score-keeping pencils are biodegradable and non-toxic.
3.The Wild Seed Game ($22.00) The goal of this game is to get kids to connection Earth, food, and health. The game is gor 4-9 year olds. Also they can play the game for different ways. Players choose cards saying whether their crops die or grown while teaching the player about the food chain, growing process, nutrients, and sunlight.

4.Bioviva ($24.00) The production of this game produces 63 percent fewer greenhouse gases, uses half as much water and energy, and gives off only about 20 percent of the toxic compounds of the other games. This game is for six players over the age of 8. Each player travels around the world to gain Eco Points by answering environmental questions. There are more than 800 questions.
5.Gaia's Garden ($44.00) This game is to teach kids to cooperate. The players have a garden and have to keep it free from insects and pests. The game board is made with watercolor paint on recycled paper. The board is then mounted with natural flour-and-water gule to recycled boards.                                 
6.Liebrary,Call It! and Famous Last Lines ($23.00, $30.00 and $15.00) These games are based on social interaction. In Liebrary players try to invent the most convincing first line of a book. For Famous Last Lines the player make final bon mots from well-loved films, and in Call It palyers have to be the first to yell out winning entried in random categories.
7. Used and Vintage Board Games-For classic games try to use used game boards that have all the pieces, they are better for the environment than the new ones. Also game companies won't waste as much product to make new game boards of classic games.

I think that these games are a great idea. Some of them don't seem fun to me but to a little kid I'm sure they will be entertaining. The nice thing about these games are that the all have a purpose to help the kids in life and I think that is important for a game to have.

In class we talked about evolution and these new game boards about the environment is an evolution. People took the idea of a game and adapted them so that they could become new games that help a child to develop.



Pictures froom google.

A Facebook Game that relates to the Real LIfe

 When most people play a game on Facebook they do it for fun. But what if there was a game that is fun but also help to inforce recycling. Well there is, it's called Oceanopolis. I found this article called Can a Facebook Game Really Boost Recycling at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/can-a-facebook-game-really-boost-recycling.php?campaign=th_rss. I was drawn to this article because it had to do with facebook and I wasn't sure if this game was actually going to teach people anything.
   This article talks about the company Greenopolis and how they came up with a new way to motovate people to recycle. When recyclers take cans and bottles to kiosk's they earn points that can give them coupons for restaurants, theaters, and retail shops. From this idea they decided to expand it to Facebook with a game call Oceanopolis. In this game you own your own island and have to keep it beautiful by recycling all the bottles that wash up onto your island. By creating this game Greenopolis is hoping to expand social media dn boosts awareness about real-life kiosks. Another feature they added to this game to encourage people to play is that you can earn points that can be added to your real life Greenopolis kiosks. The company believes that by 2020 the amount of recycled items will triple. In the article the question, is it really going to work comes up. The response to that is that they are familiarizing the players with how to us Greenopolis kiosks and if people are going to play games why not teach them the benefits of sustainablility.  In this article a negative comment is brought up, what if people are just sitting around using up electricity earning up points to consume more items and not taking the step in real life. Then the game doesn't do any good at all.
   Here is a trailer for the game Oceanopolis


I decided to look up and find some more information about Oceanopolis and went to the Greenopolis webstie http://greenopolis.com/games/oceanopolis/help. Under the category "What's this Greenopolis Recycling Kiosk all about?" it talks about Greenopolis putting up thousands of  Recycling Kiosks acroos the U.S. It says this is going to help wiht our plastic problems and that when you recycle you earn points that can be turned into coins on Oceanopolis. Once you fill up your pockets you go to the website and it shows you how many coins you've earned. A bonus is that sometimes companies will give people "special offers".

In environmental class we've been talking about statistics and this kinda relates because we're using the statistics that most people use the internet and play games to reach people on the idea of sustainability.

At first I thought this was a really cool idea let's teach and encourage people to recycle and we'll give them a reward. Then after reading about it on the Greenopolis page I thought it was a bad idea because the way I took it was that all the stuff you recycle gives you coins on a game. I don't recieve anything from those coins and I already recycle and get nothing from it. Just getting coins from an online game makes the whole concept bad no one wants coins for a game especially when their are people that already recycle and don't care to play games. This game does teach people how to recycle but I'm not sure if it will kept people playing for long.