Like the recently covered Mission: ISSS, virtual reality can take us to environments we normally wouldn’t be able to explore and educate us in how those unique spaces operate. Back down on Earth, though, there are circumstances closer to home that a younger generation could be better informed on.
Teachers have already reported on the benefits of a VR curriculum so, hopefully, the WATERisLIFE charity is making the right call by entrusting VR with their newest educational tool: Hidden Dangers.
WATERisLIFE’s mission is to provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene programs. They collaborate with non-profit partners to make an impact community by community via education and even more direct means like supplying water filtration straws for those with an immediate need. For Hidden Dangers, WATERisLIFE partnered with Ntropic + Tactic and Ray Tintori of mssngpeces. With this experience, the team is using the VR platform to educate children in Thailand about the unseen dangers of polluted water.
“Clean water is a universal problem, and the Hidden Dangers marketing campaign is a smart, artistic way to bring real-world problems—and their solutions—to the forefront,” said Ken Surrite, the Founder and CEO of WATERisLIFE. “We realized that by using VR, we could make the real dangers visible. These children will never forget the monsters they saw, but they also won’t forget how to clean the water and defeat them.”
Hidden Dangers has you facing various monsters that represent the toxic agents that can be found in polluted water and you’ll take them down using a filtration straw. As kids take down the monsters, the narrator and on-screen text will share more information on how and why that particular monster hurts the water source. The application debuted at schools on the Khao Laem River in Thailand, showing the children most directly affected how they can safely filter their water and it will continue to be shown at schools around the world to raise awareness. The information presented in the app and the Oculus version of the app itself is available on the Hidden Dangers website for free.
