BARROS, Marcelo Alves.; ANDRADE, Valéria.; MOURA, José Antão Beltrão.; SILVA, José Irivaldo Alves Oliveira.; ALC NTARA, Hugo Morais de.; VIEIRA, Fátima.; BARBOSA, Sandra Carla Pereira.; GONÇALVES, Arimarques.; COSTA, Gabriel Cintra Alves da.; ALMEIDA JÚNIOR, Francisco Edeverton de.; ARAÚJO, Rafaela Lacerda.; PINHEIRO, Igor Matheus Castor Diniz.; PATRÍCIO, Diego Silva.; AIRES, Yggo Ramos de Farias.; NAVINER, Sophie.
Abstract:
Water management has mainly been dealt with by research institutions and governments with little
engagement from schools, teachers and the population at large. This paper describes AQUAGUARDIANS
(AG), an alternate reality, serious game for tutored education. The game offers a cultural environment to
engage communities and, hopefully, crowds in water management by means of multimedia reading and
writing experiences in virtual-real world scenarios. AG combines: a) gamified entertainment experiences; b)
artistic production ‘coopetitions’ of individual or collective cultural representations of water by multimedia
communications; and, c) effective actions to save, preserve and monitor community water resources.
Applications of AG in two cities suffering from severe water crises in Northeastern Brazil provide
preliminary evidence the game improves (learning and water management) success indicators defined by
schools and water management agencies.
