Learn about traditionally significant plants in Indigenous cultures through an interactive experience.
The NBE3UO Course allowed me to explore the text in mediums other than just written literature. It taught me unfamiliar yet intuitive techniques such as learning through touching, smelling, observing, and even tasting. A realization sparked in me that there is immense potential in learning from the natural world around us. Through this game, I intended to share the opportunity to learn by touching, smelling, and observing, with those who are unable to explore Indigenous culture by visiting the outdoors. By creating an interactive experience, I aim to bridge the gap between the natural world and the virtual world, ultimately enabling users to explore Indigenous traditions on their own. I am very proud that the game has a goal-oriented design, where the users must explore the plants before they can discover the plant’s name and research it. This functionality enables the reader to visualize and characterize the plant in their imagination before they understand its uses, creating a vivid connection between the plant’s functional and physical components within their minds. The best part about designing and programming a game is that I have the opportunity to continuously update it with new plants as I progress through my journey of learning about the significance of plants in Indigenous cultures. In the future, I plan on adding more plants such as cedar, bearberry, wild mint, and many others to keep the game fresh and exciting.
Umayeer Ahsan is a Bengali-born grade 11 student at Bloor Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his friends at parks, playing games, and programming. Programming has been a passion of his since he was in elementary school, always trying to take every opportunity to code and design meaningful software. He enjoys developing interactive and educational experiences that allow users to participate in activities that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Citations for all sprites and research sources can be found in the CITATIONS.md file.
All contributions are welcome! Feel free to add more information to the existing plants or new entire plants! Just fork the repo and request a merge when you are done making changes. Ensure to add any new sources in CITATIONS.md, following the existing formatting. Thank you for your incredible contributions to this project!