Education is the key ingredient to survive any disaster.

Teaching preschool and elementary school children can be challenging due to the relatively short attention span of young minds. Incorporating AR into the learning process, however, can help enliven and improve the situation. “What’s the Plan Stan” is a civil defence game from the makers of “Magical Park” inspired and sponsored by Auckland Civil Defence, EQC and MCDEM/NEMA in New Zealand.

“What’s the plan Stan” is an educational game catering to the age group of 6 - 12 years old, teaching them the importance of civil defence. You just need to use your screen to interact with the technology. What’s the plan Stan” positions an augmented 3D world around the player and the player is able to walk up to 3D content and interact with it. Unlike Pokemon go, who for a long time used 2D animations overlaid over a live camera feed. The game teaches kids the “6 Impact strategies”, where they learn the importance of civil defence and emergency management. New Zealand is a country prone to natural disasters like earthquakes, storms, volcanoes and floods hence emergency management is important for kids to learn. Being a cosmopolitan country New Zealand has an amazing diversification of culture and tradition. It becomes really difficult to educate such a diverse population about emergency management and civil defence. The game prepares kids, on how to react during such situations and with the help of kids, even parents are educated for the same. After playing the game, kids are not just educated about emergency management but also about the hazards that can potentially harm or kill them.

 Gamified learning also called “Serious Gaming” in itself is a better way to learn. Fun and education together make a perfect environment for the kids to learn. Apart from providing knowledge about emergency management, the games also make kids physically active.

The ideal place to play the game is in a large school field under teacher supervision. The kids start the game in the middle of the field, learn to calibrate their digital compass and can then see an alternate world through their device's camera. The 1st task is to find a torch, batteries and a raincoat in a stormy landscape. Branches are flying and rain is pounding down. Lightning is flashing in the sky as the students have to physically run around the landscape and find their first virtual emergency kit items. It’s a race against time and the clock is ticking and the level is only completed if all items have been found and the student gets safely home to his virtual family where he or she is safe.

The 7 levels are locked and the student has to master first the most common emergency scenarios storm and flood before moving on to dealing with earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. The final level is a zombie level where the player learns to take care of his team or family and bring them all home safely. The Zombie level is a reward for successfully completing all levels. Testing the game with  5 schools showed that learning what items need to be in an emergency box or what are typical hazards in a storm are much better maintained through a game. After only playing for 30 mins, the students remembered 70-90% of all learned material.

The mobile game will be rolled out together with a WebGL game to schools in 2020. It is available in English, Te Reo Maori, Chinese and Japanese.

We at GEO AR GAMES master the art of Geospatial Augmented Reality gaming and we believe that our new educational -cum - entertainment Civil Defence game will be accepted positively, just like “Magical Park”.

Raj Parikh - One head, many hats

Copywriter & Media-Marketing strategist

http://linkedin.com/in/raj-parikh-44a313161