Designing Educational Game to Increase Environmental Awareness

Abstract

Plastic is a versatile material that is inexpensive and has the characteristics of being lightweight, strong, durable, anti-corrosive, with high thermal and electrical insulation properties. Regardless of the positive impact on economic development, it brings negative impacts on the environment. The amount of plastic waste, that continues to increase, pollutes the environment and ocean chronically. There needs to be a change in people behavior and awareness to reduce the use of it. In fact, raising awareness of the environment from the dangers of plastic waste is not an easy matter, but if taught since childhood, good environmental awareness and habits will be formed. This research tried to raise awareness among elementary school children in Indonesia of the dangers of plastic waste through an educational game developed using the Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC). GDLC consists of six phases: initiation, pre-production, production, testing, beta, and release. Strategy genre was chosen for engaging gameplay. Environmental awareness and knowledge on the danger of plastic waste were given integrally through storylines, gameplay, goals, and animated cutscenes. The results of testing at the beta stage on the respondents showed that 71.11% of primary school student respondents gained environmental knowledge.