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Perfect World: A Serious Game About The Water Cycle


Perfect World, developed by BreakAway Games for The Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS), was selected as a finalist in the 2013 Serious Game Showcase and Challenge in the Business Category, one of the seven award categories of the SGS&C, at the 2013 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) held in Orlando, FL December 2 – 5, 2013.

Perfect World is a science game about the water cycle targeting the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) educational needs of students covering topics from the biology, earth and space science and environmental science curricula.

Perfect World was created as part of the BCPS Learning in Virtual Environments (BCPS L.i.V.E.) program, in which student teams compete to develop software games that incorporate elements of the BCPS curriculum into game play.
Based on an original 2010 idea from then-Woodlawn High School students Rufus and Rachel Carter, Perfect World casts players as water molecules and takes them on a journey through the water cycle in a variety of locations, infusing biology, earth and space science, and environmental science instruction into the action.

Perfect World is most successful in maintaining the state of eagerness that motivates players to cover all “water cycle locations”, which only becomes possible after “knowledge pathways” are built.