ABC Catchment Detox

This most excellent game has been around for a while and I’ve finally made it around to putting up a post for it. In 1998 the ABC developed the Catchment Detox game as part of its Science online portal.

The game puts you in charge of a catchment with a small population, a budget and a range of choices for you to make to balance economic growth with environmental sustainability, mainly through the quality of the water. On one hand, some choices can make you quick money to spend on technology and better agricultural techniques. On the other hand, these typically poor environmental choices degrade the quality of the water and affect the health of the catchment.

A nice lesson in the fact that all decisions we make involve some sort of trade-off. You also get really good feedback on your performance which can be good if you incorporate some sort of reflection element into your activities. There are also additional resources such as a fact sheet to help you use the resource in class.

Click here to go to the game.