Citizen Science

http://www.filamentgames.com/project_files/CitizenScience/Releases/Year2%20v1.0/popup.html

A game that was mentioned in the program for Games for Change 2010, you play the part of a persuasive young person (you get to choose boy or girl) who has to collect evidence for why the lake keeps getting polluted and stop it.

Neat little flash game, very linear storyline. Really clear who you need to talk to, and there's a little tag that tells you what to do next. Ideally I think the information the characters give you ought to be so clear that you don't need that, but it does help. Also occasionally the direction you're supposed to go in isn't really made clear.

It is very prescriptive, and after a while I kind of stopped reading the full arguments. You could tell which chunks are supposed to go with which arguments by reading the short bit at the top, rather than the full description. That might negate the learning somewhat. I guess the plus side for children would be something like fairy stories: the kid saved the world from the big bad guys. Be interesting to see if that really worked that way for children.