Wednesday, July 27, 2011

New video game: Garbage Spreader

Louie the Litterbug
The new computer game launched this year is called Garbage Spreader. In the game, you need to chase Louie the Litterbug. He is a garbage spreader, an outlaw and likes to throw garbage out. Your mission is to capture him and take all his garbage. First of all, you’ll need to find him, it isn’t hard, because everywhere he walks he leaves garbage on the floor.
Secondly, you have to capture and take him to the police station; additionally you need to separate recyclable waste at recycling station. Finally, your job will be ready.
Above all, the principal message in this game is to teach people about the importance of preserving the enviroment and the consequences of littering (throwing garbage out on public places). 
In the game you can see it in a funny way, but on the real life it isn’t. During the game, you can see how the town changes when you pick up the garbage from the floor and put it on a garbage can. Every dirt you pick up, in the same place a flower is born and you win points. In the real life is the same way, you don’t win points, but responsibility, and it isn’t born a flower too, but you can plant it when you want.

You can find this game for downloading  on the internet. Your children will like it, and all the family can play. The most important thing is to understand the message in this game, not just to play it. Games that teach something to people are on the top nowadays, and to play without a message behind the game is to lose your time, we already use the internet without any content checking the facebook or twittering, for example, so when you have a game with a good message it is a single opportunity to change this behavior  and to distress learning something.  
Finally, let’s pay attention at the games, if they are affecting you. The research shows us that children who play violent games (like GTA or War craft)  are more aggressive than the others that don’t play them. The games have a big power, and everyone has to think about the games that children are playing and if they're muddling their raising. We don’t need to stop playing the games, but to try to choose them better !

Vocabulary:

litter: (noun) things such as pieces of paper that people have dropped on the ground in a public place, making it messy, e.g.: The park and river are full of litter.

litterbug: someone who drops litter in public places


muddle-headed (adj) resulting from a lack of clear thought, e.g.: muddle-headed plans
muddle (noun) (objects) mess
muddle (verb) (objects) mix up, jumble
muddle (verb) (ideas) confuse, mix up


by Wagner Barros
Barone English's student
level 2



References:
This game was inspired on the cartoon Woody Woodpecker Show - Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker (English) (released in 1967 in the USA). On this cartoon Woody Woodpecker has to arrest  Louie the Litterbug (Luiz o Espalha Lixo)

Woody Woodpecker Show - Secret Agent Woody Woodpecker (Portuguese)


Note: This text is result of Barone English’s methodology. Different writing techniques are developed every unit. Besides that, the students make presentations about the same theme, based on their researches.