Meet the Climate Game Changer

(upbeat electronic music) - Ready for school.

What's the mascot here?

Go STEM's.

You don't have a mascot?

Do you have sports teams?

Not even like swimming?

- [Rayan] No we don't have... - [Katie] Fencing?

These kids need to get outside.

So, will you show me around the school?

- Of course.

- Do you think I'll fit in here?

- (laughs) I think so.

- Do you think everyone will think that I'm a teacher or a student?

- Probably a student, actually.

- Oh, I like that.

- There's a lot of, you know, wackos at this school.

- Oh.

Some non-traditional high school students?

- Oh yeah, of course.

My name is Rayan.

- Nice to meet you.

- I'm a senior at Tesla STEM High School.

I created Operation Sustain, it's an educational video game to teach kids about climate change.

And I worked really hard on learning how to program, and developing.

It was around then that I realized that I needed a team to make sure that the simulation was as good as it could be, and I could reach as many students as possible.

We each had our own role, some of us were in charge of film, or graphics, or education, and so in that way we could compartmentalize and really make the most progress.

- And why's this important to you, why do kids need to learn about climate change?

- It's important that we make the science of climate change more accessible to younger students so that they don't have as much bias or pseudo-science, and that we're making sure that these topics are easily understandable.

- When you say bias and pseudo-science, what are you talking about specifically?

- Well, a lot of times students, even by the time they're in high school, they have seen commercials, or media that have portrayed climate change to be you know, "fake news" or something like that.

I remember on the first day, I came into a class and asked kids, where does electricity come from?

And this girl in the front she jumped out and said, "Electricity comes from Gatorade."

(both laugh) And it was just that, misconceptions that kids have.

- And so, how does your game communicate this message?

- Yeah, so these are some really tough issues and trying to make sure a third or fifth grader can understand it is really hard.

In the game they start out with an empty world and they have to build a city by placing houses and energy sources.

And so over the course of the game, they can explore and see what works best for their citizens.

If you asked them, they would say, "I didn't learn anything," 'cause they were just busy having fun playing the game.

- So you fooled them?

- Exactly, I fool them into learning.

I quiz the kids on the first day and the last day, and from their test scores I saw that they more than doubled their initial scores.

- Alright, let's play the game.

- Let's do it.

This is an empty world, we can see the trees and empty spaces.

- [Katie] Square world.

So right now we have a population of zero, and no power, and no places to live.

- Yeah.

So a pretty barren city.

I wouldn't want to live there.

And you can actually see that form the stars at the top of the screen.

That's showing how happy the citizens are.

- [Katie] Hmm.

This looks like a good place for a house.

Backs up against some wilderness.

So I think that I would like to have the coal plant far away from my houses.

So I'll put it across town.

Alright, now the lights are on.

- [Rayan] Yeah, the lights are on, the energy's gone up.

But you're also producing some of that red CO2.

- [Katie] Okay.

And water per farm.

This is going to be a high-tax, low-water city.

No pools in this city.

Alright, we're down to the minimal.

- [Rayan] And you can see that the city's doing really well.

Even though there's high taxes the citizens are super happy with five stars.

- Alright, so now my population... Well, my population's at zero now.

- Yeah, well there's no food so... - [Katie] Oh, everybody left.

Oh, that's right, okay.

So I need more farms.

- [Rayan] Oh, but now the... - [Katie] Oh, but now my pollutions are going up.

How am I doing?

- You know, I've seen some third graders who have gotten some...

I don't know (laughing) - You can just say it, I'm doing terribly.

I'm a horrible city planner.

How would you fix this city, to make it more liveable?

To make my people happier.

I want my people to be happy.

- Well, we can start by trying to get our pollution level back down.

So, clicking on more of the houses and setting them to use buses instead.

- [Katie] Alright, solar panels?

- [Rayan] Let's do it.

- [Katie] So where does this game end?

- It could end in five seconds.

I don't think necessarily one version of playing the game is better than the other.

My role is to just show them the science related to climate change and let them explore for themselves.

And also, hear their ideas on some of these topics.

- And hopefully they won't leave thinking that electricity is made from Gatorade.

- Hopefully.

- Hopefully.

Enhance.

- [Off-Screen] And zoom in.

- Enhance.

Enhance.

Enhance.

(laughing) I'm not sure what you're... - [Off-Screen] You guys don't know the enhance meme?

- No.

- [Off-Screen] How old are you, Katie?

- I don't know if that makes me old or young.

(laughing) - [Voiceover] This program is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.