Danube Adventure: online game launched
Vienna, 9 February 2016. The new online game DanubeAdventure.org provides children with an exciting opportunity to engage with the Danube. A clever mix between a quiz and skills games, Danube Adventure is a new chapter in the success story of ICPDR education activities. It is launched today in the frame of the 3rd ICPDR Ministerial Meeting.
If children can understand the complexity of rivers and ecosystems, they will care about their protection and become concerned adults – this is the essence behind the ICPDR’s environmental education projects, and the reason for their impressive success. Today, ten years after the launch of the Danube Box teaching kit, another milestone has been reached: the launch of Danube Adventure, an online educational game.
For Danube Adventure, the objective is to build on the success of Danube Box and transfer the contents – knowledge about the Danube, water and the life that depends on it – to a contemporary medium. Danube Adventure targets children between the ages of 10 and 14 years.
Minister Andrä Rupprechter (Austria), President Peter J. Kalas (ICPDR)
and Minister Richard Brabec (Czech Republic) launching the game.
Players of Danube Adventure can choose different avatars to take part in their Danube Adventure along the three segments of the Danube which they have to complete. On their upstream journey, they encounter multiple choice questions through which credits can be earned. Once a certain credit score is reached, more avatars become available for the player to use.
To keep the attention span high, the journey is interrupted by ‘skills games’, which provide additional challenges and learning opportunities. For example, in one of the skills games, players take a rest from their journey to catch quickly emerging bubbles representing objects that should not be in the river, such as plastic bags or broken bottles. Back on the river, a database with hundreds of questions teaches children about animals, plants, hydrology, history and geography of the river and the countries along its banks.
Danube Adventure can be played on both computers and phones, is platform-independent and suitable for slower internet connections. Just like Danube Box, the educational game is a product of the ‘Green Danube Partnership’ between the ICPDR and the Coca-Cola System.
