Mobile serious game proposal for environmental awareness of children

One of the many difficulties faced in cities include the accumulation of waste in streets, sidewalks, public squares, causing major environmental problems. This is not only due to lack of public policies and urban infrastructure, but also lack of citizen participation. Given this scenario, there is a crucial need to educate the people, especially children, who represent the future of society. This study presents a mobile serious game proposal, called “Protecting the Earth”, about selective waste collection, recycling, reduction of waste production and waste reuse in different game stages with focuses in childish public. The methodology adopted included Systematic Review; application of Participatory Design methods, such as the Context Inquiry technique; specification of functional and non-functional requirements and the study of technologies appropriate for developing the project. Experiments were conducted with children aiming to assess the proposed tool's interface. The results obtained by means of usability testing with users showed the need for adjustments in the interface in order to achieve greater accessibility and user satisfaction, and were met immediately. The next step is to perform learning evaluation experiments in order to verify if the proposed serious game is collaborating to acquire user knowledge about the study object (Environmental Education).