The Resource Wars [Common Threads]

Video games tend to borrow from those that came before, and build upon things that have become old hat from previous generations. Settings, the worlds and universes of each game, are usually as varied as the characters that inhabit them. However, common threads can often be seen among them. In this post, I'll talk about how video games tackle the issue of limited resources, and see if there's anything we can glean from the way they handle it.

One common setting for a variety of video games is a post-apocalyptic landscape brought on by war, often over limited resources. In the Fallout universe, the reason relations between China and the United States soured was due to depletion of petroleum reserves. The result? 2 hours of nuclear exchange that ended civilization as we know it. In the Gears of War universe, the various factions of Sera fight over control of Imulsion, a highly valuable energy source that is basically monopolized by a single nation. The war over this resource, as well as the resource itself, is responsible for how things end up where they do when the character takes control.

Some games settings don't rely on all out war over resources, but their settings are nevertheless depended on the never ending quest for minerals. In Borderlands, for example, the planet of Pandora is initially colonized by a mega corporation in order to mine it of all valuable minerals. However, once they strip the planet dry and find it no longer profitable to run their operations, they abandon the planet, leaving it a barren wasteland covered with nothing but landfills and derelict mining equipment. Plus, as an added insult, the convict labor force used for mining is simply released, which is why the player has to deal with the roaming gangs of bandits across his adventures. In the game Dead Space, the player is also sent to a planet mining operation, but in this universe, mining a planet means actually cracking it into pieces and processing the bits that fall out. It just happens that one of the bits is a face eating zombie plague religion, but I digress.

So how can we use these examples and the common thread among them for energy education? We can talk about the limited nature of many resources, and how if we continue using things like fossil fuels that there will be a point where it will no longer become economical to do so. We can talk about some of the more fantastical worst case scenarios, including resource wars and having to travel to distant planets for minerals. But the best way we can use this is to simply generate interest and dialogue among the students. When kids are engaged in a discussion, they're more likely to internalize what they've learned and come up with interesting solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems.

Reframe: Using Pop Culture For Energy

I think something we need to consider when talking about science education is how it is framed for students in the classroom. Facts are often given in a vacuum: they come from a textbook with very little context and few connections to a student's world at large. But what if we brought what kids cared about into the classroom, engaged what they know with what we want to teach? I think that we can reframe the discussion on energy topics to include video game and other pop culture references, increasing student interest, and maybe even turn some of them into scientists in the process.

I want to start by giving an example of how to introduce several types of energy technology to kids with the Fallout video game series. The Fallout universe is one in which 50's era cold war mentality and atomic age technology were never abandoned, resulting in a future where cars are powered by nuclear reactors and vacuum tubes were the cornerstone of computer technology. Energy is of great importance in this universe, since the nuclear war which caused the game's post-apocalyptic setting was a result of a resource war brought on by the depletion of petroleum reserves. As the player works through the wasteland of what used to be the United States, he comes across a variety of things which can be used as a tie in to various energy technologies. For example, in the game Fallout: New Vegas, the player comes across a solar complex that uses concentrated sunlight on a central tower to generate energy. The climax of the game also takes place on the Hoover Dam, which given scarcity of resources in the game universe is a very valuable commodity.

By tying lessons about petroleum, nuclear energy, or natural resources to examples form the Fallout games, students become more involved with their own learning, using these visual examples to better understand more complex concepts. These examples can be used as a humorous introduction to nuclear topics, with pictures of the mutated inhabitants used to illustrate how the public views nuclear energy. They can also be used as an example of where the game got things right, and where they are exaggerating facts for fictional use. They can also be used as simply a way to connect with kids who are uninterested, a way of bringing in those who are on the fence about listening at all.

These are, of course, mature themes which need to be assessed by the teacher using them. But I believe that these examples can be used to generate more interest in learning, and even cause students to retain knowledge better. The more involved and engaged they become in the learning process, the better they are able to grasp the concepts important to the lesson.