Thursday, January 13, 2011

UNESCO: 1st computer game for young people on HIV and AIDS





Fast Car: Travelling Safely around the World - Introduction
Screenshot of the game© UNESCO


UNESCO launched the first interactive multimedia tool on HIV and AIDS prevention for youth,  December 23th, 2010. 

The computer game "Fast Car:Travelling Safely around the World" aims to provide young people with accurate and reliable information about HIV prevention, while educating, entertaining and promoting healthy behaviour.



Peru - Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu


Target group: 

The target audience for the game is young people from 16 to 24 years or older. 

Teenagers often want to talk to their parents about HIV-related issues, but may find it difficult to do so. Children may worry about parents’ disapproval and have fears about the risk of becoming infected with HIV. 

Parents are often shy, lack accurate information about HIV and AIDS, or do not have sufficient skills to speak about prevention with their children, and teachers frequently assume that parents will talk with children at home. 

Fast Car: Travelling Safely around the World is the game that provides information on existing preventive practices, treatment and care for HIV and AIDS. 

The player can race on circuits on five different continents and virtually visit some of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. It also presents images of sites and interesting facts about them as players race by. Read more



Greece - Acropolis


Context of use: Cross-curricula, Sciences, History, Geography, Languages, Civics (secondary education and higher education).

Content:

The game aims to provide young people with accurate and reliable information about HIV prevention, intending to educate and entertain as well as promoting healthy behaviour. 

In this game, the player can race on circuits on five continents, and virtually visit some of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. It also presents images of sites and interesting facts about them as players race by.


Australia - Sydney Opera House

There are two tracks for each continent - a Preliminary track and a Championship track. Every track has a set of check points. At the check point, one can take part in a Mini-Quiz, and possibly earn a time bonus. In the mini-quiz, the player will be asked a multiple-choice question related to HIV and AIDS prevention.


France - Château de Versailles



Languages:

The game is available online for downloading free of charge in four languages here
  • English 
  • French 
  • Russian
  • Chinese
Learning objectives:

The importance of the game consists in providing young people with information materials on HIV and AIDS that can be widely distributed through communication channels in order to help them to gain an accurate understanding of these issues and preventive practices. UNESCO expects that this may change their behaviour.

Developers:

The following local researchers and experts contributed content for the game, working together to ensure its scientific accuracy: 

Path Ukraine (Ukraine), the Institution of Social Development (Viet Nam) and Heidelberg University, Department of Virology (Germany). Lakshya Digital Pvt. Ltd. (India) helped UNESCO to develop the game concept and realize it technically. 





Video clip of "Fast Car: Travelling Safely around the World"*



Note: *If you can not watch the video, please go on the website of UNESCO.


G-Souto

13.01.2011
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UNESCO: 1st computer game for young people on HIV and Aids bG-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

References:

UNESCO News Education

UNESCO Communication and Information

2 comments:

  1. Nice game. It has its relevance to the world and not one of those mind blowing, eye popping genres that are on the consoles today. We should take part with this vision, helping our youths to learn and enjoy..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it is, Brad! It has relevance because young people and students can learn about History (World Heritage) and Sciences (information materials on HIV and AIDS).
    Also, it's important to help them to change some behavior in their personal life!

    So, educating, entertaining and promoting healthy behaviour are interesting goals.

    Yes, you're right when you say that we should take part with this vision,

    But, let me tell you that there are interesting consola and PC games that can be used as well in school. It depends on educators good choices.
    Still, I think producers must work with educators!

    ReplyDelete