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Work-in-Progress: SimCoast: Promoting Awareness of Coastal Recession via Gaming

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Computers in Education 10 - Technology 2

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41228

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41228

Download Count

212

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Paper Authors

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Jose Lopez University of Florida

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Jose Lopez is a software engineer for L3Harris. He graduated from the University of Florida in 2022 with a B.Sc. in Computer Science.

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Thiago Matheus de Andrade Bezerra University of Florida

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Graduate from the Universidade Federal do Tocantins, Brazil, majoring in Foreign Language Education. Currently a masters degree student majoring in Computer Science at the University of Florida.

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Dalton Cravens University of Florida

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Dalton Cravens is a computer science major at the University of Florida. Dalton has studied several areas of computer science, but he is primarily focused on cybersecurity with interests in game design. As a member of the SimCoast development team, he has worked diligently to bring a prototype to life that accurately reflects the challenges of coastal development. Dalton currently has an internship in cybersecurity consulting. In the future he will continue SimCoast development and completing his degree.

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Jeremiah Blanchard

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Dr. Jeremiah Blanchard currently serves as the Director of Computer Engineering and is Co-Director of the Engaging Learning Lab. His research focuses on how programming language representation connects to learning, remote digital computing assessment techniques, and educational games in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Dr. Blanchard graduated from the University of Florida with his PhD in Computer Engineering. He served as the CISE UF Online Director from from 2017-2021.

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Abstract

Humans have congregated near coastlines since the emergence of early civilizations. This trend increased during the industrial revolution to facilitate access to oceans for travel and commerce. Though this trend of coastal development continues into the present day, the coast’s ability to sustain human activity remains a challenge. Rising sea levels, increasing storm power and coastal development activities have led to recession of coastlines, resulting in loss of land, property damage, and habitat loss. Thus, researchers have recognized the importance of educating the public about current coastal erosion trends and environmentally sustainable policies. We address this educational aim by developing a city-building video game, “SimCoast”, to help community members learn about the impacts of coastline recession and related environmental issues. Our game presents players with a map that mimics South Florida coastline conditions. In SimCoast, the player, acting as a city administrator, enacts policies and regulations that shape the city’s public and private-sector developments. Coastal simulations will be driven by data sets collected from real-world coastlines and how they have developed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, incorporating coastal erosion models from scientific literature and satellite imagery. Our work will also include surveys to measure the impact on perception and learning among participants. In addition to helping community members and policymakers make informed decisions, our work will provide context and guidance to researchers in engineering and education.

Lopez, J., & de Andrade Bezerra, T. M., & Cravens, D., & Blanchard, J. (2022, August), Work-in-Progress: SimCoast: Promoting Awareness of Coastal Recession via Gaming Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41228

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