AirQuest

This project focuses on viable approaches to developing a simulation game that addresses the prevalence of asthma attacks due to three distinct triggering mechanisms: agricultural, industrial and carbon fuel pollution. By working with High Schools in Fresno, the scientists are studying numerous factors that play a part in asthma’s increasing frequency: limited access to education, health information, and new media, and a reluctance to participate in community action and local policy development.
The seed grant is being used to study while kinds of mobile games can address these challenges. The team, which is multi-disciplinary and includes researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Merced, is combining multiple strategies: climate modeling, visualization, data mining, anthropological field work, and dramatization through game design. The game design will cast players as researchers in an Central Valley health mystery by interpreting spatial maps of public records and scenarios of future climate change. The object will be for the players to develop effective strategies in a simulated game environment to manage asthma triggers and optimize their health outcomes.

This project was featured in the 2011 CITRIS Signal: http://citris-uc.org/news/social_apps_lab_citris2011

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