Background Research
Nov 30th, 2015 by winslc2
Point System Research
The point system within the game Zoe the Green Monkey was based off of actual data collected from New York State for daily usage of objects within the game such as a car, light, computer, shower, etc. The point system was based off carbon emissions and water usage for each object in the game. Energy usage for electronics in kilowatt hours was converted to metric tons of carbon emitted, which was then converted to a number of points out of 100. The kilowatt hours and carbon emissions were calculated based off of one year of using that object the same every day. For example, the carbon emissions from driving a car to school everyday for a year. Water usage was compared to carbon emissions and converted into points out of 100 as well. From there, within the game when a user makes a decision, they will either lose zero points for a good decision, or lose the corresponding number of points for the “bad” decision they made. For example, when the user chooses to leave the lights on in their room while they are at school, they lose 25 points out of 100. When the user decides to leave the water running while brushing their teeth, they lose 2 points. The point system does take health into consideration. For the shower scene in the game when the user is asked to put in a number for how many minutes they want to take a shower, they are not allowed to put zero. Objects such as cars and computers and their energy usage were chosen based off of Troy, NY so that the point system can relate directly to the students at School 2.
Click to view the Point System Spreadsheet
The spreadsheet also includes calculations for objects that were not included in the game which can be used for further teaching.