Projects/GreenThumb PH

GreenThumb or Project #43621 is an initiative to develop environmental awareness hand in hand with the love for the natural sciences. It’s main task is to create a Sugar activity that will help this initiative.

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Project Details

A Campaign for Awareness

Literacy is not simply a question of whether one is able to read or to write. It is not limited to one’s capability to memorize and develop skills with regards to time. It is, actually, one’s discernment of all factors surrounding him that may or may not contribute to his gaining of knowledge. Therefore, literacy is the quest to learn wherein the most important skill to develop is critical thinking.

With the many pressing issues we are facing, there seems to be a lot of tasks that are to be handed down to the next generation of educators, environmentalists, leaders and etc. This is what GreenThumb is about. It focuses in the development of awareness to the various environmental issues and at the same time, a love for biological sciences. This is a project that uses the active participation of this generation as the most appropriate tool to cultivate such learning. Goals and Objectives

Generally, this project aims to develop a Sugar activity that can provide teachers an alternative way for demonstrating fundamental genetic and biological concepts. This project also aims to inculcate, within the child, the importance of the environment, how relationships and interactions between plants, animals and humans can change (harm or make better) the world.

Specifically, the project focuses on achieving the following: 1. To devise a game design incorporating mesh networking to achieve a mechanism for sharing of ideas, discussion and collaborative learning. 2. To design a system architecture for efficient use of memory in implementing simulation processes. 3. To develop a simple, easy-to-use, adaptable and fail-soft User Interface encouraging creative exploration among its users.

Plan of Action

1. Test the mesh networking and other hardware capabilities of the XO laptops. 2. Consider mesh networking and other possible technical problems in the building and specifying game design/software specifications. 3. Formulate an algorithm efficient in memory usage and resulting to game design requirements. 4. Design a user-friendly interface. 5. Collect various data needed for game development. 6. Review game design and finalize specification. 7. Implement, test and debug. timeline for the GreenThumb Project

Impact

The project is aims to create a new learning activity that can give teachers a way to demonstrate fundamental genetic/biological concepts (e.g. selection, dominance of traits) thus, it is to benefit the greater OLPC/Sugar community and to create an impact outside the OLPC/Sugar community as it can serve as a tool for demonstrating the effects of human activities to the ecosystem and environment. Thus, it develops and fosters a child’s awareness to the different issues related to his surroundings.

It requests a number of three (3) laptops for the testing of the capabilities and possible defects that may affect the software requirements of the project. As it is necessary for us to know how we can develop such activity for the XO laptop that the simulating would not be enough to consider the effects such software to the hardware in question. This will allow us to further consider the application of the mesh networking concept to the game design specifications and for the implementations of this project. This number will also aid us in program testing and debugging. Thus, in this context, any XO machine working properly is highly appreciated.

Sharing Deliverables

All developments and updates regarding the GreenThumb project will be published in [1]. This wiki project page will be edited monthly or whenever it is appropriate. An email regarding the on-going progress of the project will be sent to the contributors@laptop.org at least weekly.

The resulting software, aside from being downloadable directly from this site will be added as a Sugar activity to facilitate its distribution to learners everywhere. But if in case the project stalls or in the case where the laptops will no longer be needed, they will be handed to a local OLPC group or other interested contributors.