There are many contributing factors as to why a virus spreads. One of those factors is the human factor – Simply put, the more that people stay at home and keep a safe 2 metre distance from each other the slower the virus can spread in your community.
In ‘COVID-19: Stop the Spread’, you can modify the ‘Staying home’ factor. The activity illustrates how social distancing has a direct impact on how fast a virus like COVID-19 can spread.
Students and teachers will gain a small insight into virus science, the effects a virus can have on society, and at the same time level up their digital fluency skills.
On behalf of the team at Gamefroot, good luck out there! Keep your distance, wash your hands, never stop learning, and be well.
How it works:
Open the COVID-19 resource in Gamefroot
1. Browse to Gamefroot (https://make.gamefroot.com)
2. Login / create an account from the Gamefroot Home page. This will take you to the Gamefroot Dashboard. From there you can open the resource, like so.
3. Click the Stop the Spread button to open the resource
4. This will open the activity in the online Gamefroot platform
5. Click ‘Play’ button to see the simulation unfold
Modifying the spread factor
To modify the ‘virus spread’ in the simulation you need to edit the percentage of people that stay at home. …….
1. Right-click on the 0% for Staying home image, and click Edit script. You will notice that the default number for the community staying home is set to 0, which means nobody stays at home. You’re going to change that.
2. Try changing the percentage of people to 50% by clicking on that 0 and typing in 50. Hit the X button in the top right to go back to the Editor. Save your changes and hit the Play button to see what happens.
Embracing your inner journalist
One of the features in Gamefroot’s COVID-19 resource is that you can write their own news scroller. News headlines will scroll by as the simulation progresses.
1. Right-click on the news ticker at the bottom of the game, and click Edit Script.
2. Click on BREAKING NEWS and type your own news into that textfield. If you were in charge of the news, what would you want to tell people?
3. Click Play to run the simulation with your own news headlines. You can go back and add or change your news if you’d like.
Saving and previewing your work
When you’re happy with your changes hit the X button to close the script editor. This will ask you to save your work. This will take you back to the level editor. When you are back in the main editor you can hit the big orange play button at any time to to see your simulation unfold.