Care for Our World, an educational game for kids to learn about environment
Take an interactive journey around the world, discovering diverse environments and the animals that call them home
Source: iOS description / Image: Iphonedigital CC BY-SA 2.0
Useful information
Download: iOS 8.0 (206MB. Only iPad. iPhone not supported)
Price: 2.99$
Language: English
Runs offline: yes
Last update: iOS 01/03/2017 (v. 1.0.1)
Website of the developer: Sunbreak Games
Description
Care for Our World is an application for children from 3 years that teaches them to discover the environment, increasing awareness in environmental protection. The application is the interactive version of the children’s book of the same name, by Karen Robbins with illustrations by Alexandra Ball, published in 2012.
This application linked to environmental education has 4 main sections:
- Read, where it learns to identify the words and the different elements that compose the scene. At the same time and as long as the narration option is activated, you can listen the original story accompanied by music and ambient sound (also optional).
- Color, section in which you can choose a scene from among the 4 available and color it. Once finished, you can make a screenshot and store it in the Art Gallery.
- Create, a section where clicking and dragging, you can include up to 25 animals in each of the proposed habitats. You can also modify the size, rotation or orientation of these animals figures. By clicking on some of them, you can hear their most characteristic sounds, being able, like the previous case, to make screenshots for their storage.
- Learn, section that includes a brief description of 16 animals that appear in the application along with real images that show them in their natural habitats.
Within the main menu you also have three options in the lower right: configuration, where you can activate or deactivate the sound options; access to the Art gallery, where you can see the screenshots; and an information section.
More information
Care for Our World (analysis of the app by Stacy Zeiger)
Celebrate Earth Day with the Care for Our World app
Images: Screenshots 24/05/2017. ©Sunbreak Games
Rating
Analysis
The knowledge in relation to the environment that surrounds us and the role played by the human being in the necessary state of equilibrium is a fundamental aspect to face the environmental crisis that the planet is experiencing, being one of the objectives, as the Belgrade Charter: a framework for environmental education (1976) establishes, «to help individuals and social groups acquire an awareness of and sensitivity to the total environment and its allied problems». One of the most important stages for the assimilation of these concepts is school age, when it is necessary to instill the importance of environmental protection to children with specially adapted materials that can be supported with technology.
Thus, Care for Our World is an example of how to transmit knowledge through a mobile application that stands out especially for the quality of its illustrations and its ease of use, although sections like Learn may require the presence of an adult since this section does not have a narration option. The application also stands out in a positive way, as Stacy Zeiger mentions in its analysis, for not including ads, external links or in-app purchases. As aspects to improve, it might be interesting to include some marine habitat in the Create section, so children can also interact with these environments and an option to save both the drawings to be colored and habitats and loaded them later.