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Eco Agent

Organisation
European Environmental Agency (EEA) 

EEA website press release description

Age group
9-14 years old.
Topic

Become Eco-Agents and Help Protect the Environment

Goal
Children can now learn about ways to protect the environment, while chasing eco-villains.
The idea of the game is to demonstrate that there are relations between environment and health, especially for children. It also shows how seemingly small, individual behavioural changes can have a major impact at European level.
In the long-term, the developers hope that the game will inspire private games developers to integrate environmental issues into their commercial pc-games.

Resources

Start the game

Languages: All official EU languages + 3 languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Icelandic, Kalaallisut, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish; plus: Turkish, Norwegian and Russian (26 European languages).

Task

The agents are then sent out on missions within the areas: chemicals, transport, water, air and climate change. The visitor starts out as an agent-trainee and must gather knowledge and pass tests to finally become a fully fledged Eco-Agent. They can then compare themselves with other agents. The agent can pass tests to raise his/her score - as compared to the other Eco-Agents.

You become undercover 'eco agents' in comic strip stories. In each story, 5 heroes from the Netherlands, Finland, Poland, Turkey and Greece are assigned to a special mission, such as infiltrating a 'wind farm' in the Netherlands, which is a cover-up for a natural gas extraction facility.
After creating a personal profile, each new recruit actually appears in the comic strips alongside the permanent characters. Each mission includes games where children earn points towards a general score.

The story on climate change is online. Stories on water, sustainable lifestyle, biodiversity and air quality are planed.

Teacher's corner: Each storyline has a corresponding quiz. Correct answers provide feedback and further information on that particular issue, whereas incorrect answers first provide a hint and then invite the player to try again. The quizzes can also be downloaded and used in classrooms.

Teachers can also access other educational material as well as a list of websites in their country where they can find more detailed information about environmental issues.

Description and Evaluation

The European Environment Agency presented the Eco Agents website at 'SciFest 2008', a science and technology festival for teenagers, April 2008 in Juensuu, Finland.