Today@Sam Article

Research Team's Mobile Game Empowers Female Leadership In Egypt

March 26, 2015
SHSU Media Contact: Tammy Parrett

Hannah Gerber, center, and her team visited Egypt in 2014, where they tested a mobile game that not only taught children about recycling but ended up empowering girls to be proactive about the environment. —Submitted

It all started with a trip to Egypt.

Hannah Gerber was visiting Egypt during the summer of 2013, a time of political and social upheaval, when she had the chance to sit down with local residents to discuss what social changes they would like to see in their society. One response she continually received was the need for the improvement of recycling and waste management.

Upon returning to Sam Houston State University, where she is a professor of literacy, Gerber heard about an
opportunity provided by the Center for Enhancing Undergraduate Research Experiences and Creative Activities, called the Faculty and Student Team Awards. She approached computer animation student Luis Gaitan, with whom she had worked on previous projects, about creating a mobile app or game that encourages youth in developing nations to learn about recycling.

“I’ve done multiple studies, researching how using video games can enhance learning and create learning communities,” said Gerber, who considers herself a games scholar. “What is it about video games that are so appealing? What are these good characteristics of gaming that aligned with what good learning should be?”

Gerber with her app
Gerber shows off the SHSU-designed mobile game from her tablet. Points accrued on the game help fund recycling projects in Egypt. The game is currently still in testing but will eventually be made public in the U.S.  —Photo by Brian Blalock

She wanted to create an interdisciplinary, crossfunctional team that could easily move outside of traditional educational learning to create a unique, successful product that is fun to play. They teamed up with a friend of Gaitan’s, finance and marketing major Melissa Ashworth, to create a business plan to present to the EURECA Center. High school student Stiaan Cronje, who serves as the programming intern, joined the team shortly thereafter.

“Many universities don’t put a lot of attention on undergraduate research, so I think this opportunity is fantastic,” Gerber said. “It opens up the doors for our undergraduate students to realize their potential and to do research and carry that into their professions. SHSU does such a wonderful job of allowing faculty to pursue their passions, faculty to help mentor students, and allow students to have their own kind of passions.

“Like Fruit Ninja, ‘Litter Leader’ will be simple to play and have a first-person point of view. Trash will rain down and the player will have to sort it into the appropriate recycling container and as they level up, recycling tidbits and tips are provided,” Gerber said. “As players reach certain levels in the game, we will also have entities in the private sector that will donate money into an account, which will funnel into the health and sanitation departments of these nations and help build needed infrastructures.

Gerber and her team traveled to Egypt last fall to begin researching and seeing how the game might affect the desire for change in children.

“We worked with 20 children between the ages of 6 and 13, and we interviewed them before they played the game, asking them what they knew about mobile games and what their experiences were with recycling,” Gerber said. “We then let them play the game in a very relaxed, natural setting. We didn’t give them a time limit, we just wanted them to play.”

Through follow-up research, including post interviews and focus groups, the team found that the majority of children who were interested in the game were females.

“That got us thinking about gender parity and female empowerment, and we began to ask ourselves, ‘How can we empower women?’” Gerber recalled. “How can education –learning about something that is specifically tied to some type of social, economic and environmental issue–create desire within a young girl to become a community leader in that area or topic?”

When Gerber and her team began asking the children what they thought about the game, they were astounded by some of the responses they gathered from young women.

“I remember one girl, she started telling us how she had created recycling bins in her house, how she spent the whole evening online, researching recycling and what she could do to create recycling climate ideas,” Gerber said. “She began to notice the recycling logo on all types of products when she was out with her family, and started thinking about things that could and should be recycled to make new products.”

litter leader
In Litter Leader, trash rains down from the sky and the player sorts it into the appropriate recycling container. — Submitted images
litterleader

Another girl was also empowered to make a change just by playing the game.

“She said, ‘I want to go into my neighborhood and create questionnaires and surveys to see how people in my neighborhood understand recycling, and understand that if we don’t recycle, it is going to be detrimental to our health,’” Gerber said.

According to Gerber, women need more empowerment to feel that they can be leaders, so the goal became to foster climates where young girls in developing nations have the opportunity to create their own ideas to spark change and take local lead.

Phase two of the research will encourage Egyptian schools to create interactive clubs for children who are interested in making social changes. These clubs will be responsible for researching, collaborating and empowering themselves to create a sustainable recycling program that would work in Egypt.

These clubs would be inquiry-driven and students would create public service announcements about their programs and utilize local media to create awareness about the different options, as well as generate ideas for managing community recycling programs. The Egyptian public would then vote on the concept that they feel would be the most sustainable choice.

The team also hopes that phase two of their project will include an expansion and scaling up to other transitional democracies that face similar social and infrastructural issues. As the team moves into phase two, they will be joined by two literacy doctoral students, Slimane Aboulkacem, a Fulbright scholar, and Theresa Bodon, a former classroom teacher.

Gerber and her team recently received an invitation to travel to Paris for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s international summit, “Mobile Learning Week,” to present their research to government officials, ministers of education, policy makers, business owners and executives of the private sector, in hopes to gain support for their project.

“We want these influential people to understand that fun mobile gaming can be empowering for women,” Gerber said. “We also want to spark an interest in the concept of using mobile gaming to inspire other social changes.”

Gerber and her team will also travel to Oman in May to present at an interdisciplinary technology conference for academics and researchers across the Middle East and North Africa. They will share how youth can utilize citizen media to report on the recycling progress they make toward creating sustainable programs.

While the main purpose of Gerber’s research is to empower young women and children, she believes that there are other benefits involved for the students on her team.

“We want to open our students’ minds to what it means to work toward social change,” she said. “This mobile game won’t make money for us individually; that’s not the point of it.

“We’re also trying to break down some of these misconceptions that people have of Middle Eastern countries. Our media does a great job of vilifying people from these nations, and one of the greatest things for our students who traveled to Egypt with me is that they were able to see first-hand that it’s nothing like you see on TV. Travel is the best teacher, if you’re willing to absorb the experiences and learn.”

There are a number of opportunities available for students and faculty who are interested in working with the team on “Litter Leader” and other upcoming projects. Those interested in working with the team can contact Gerber at 936.294.3864.

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