ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING THROUGH MATH GAME
ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING THROUGH MATH GAME

Summary/Abstract: Forming adequate habits in the process of teaching the fundamental sciences may improve the sustainable contribution to a responsible environmental politic. Our present paper is focusing on such a problem in connection to the analysis of the pollution contaminating groundwater resources. Since mathematics plays a major role in the environmental modeling, the understanding and recognition of abstract notions in well specified problems- a theme present in most of our papers- can be successfully obtained by merging them in an e-learning designed game. The conceptual models on which the process of analysis and decision takes plays rely, in this case, on the use of certain equations which govern a fluid flow through different media. The students should be capable of understanding the extent to which the model is suitable in characterizing polluted aquifer systems along with its limitations, thus they will have to acquire, through their first year study at Politehnica University, notions belonging to different parts of mathematics. Our present game is concentrated over some of these notions which are required by Darcy's law along with the continuity equation. These in turn reside on the understanding of the difference between partial derivatives and total derivatives. Key concepts like curl or divergence of the flow of a fluid play an important role both in the theoretical models as well as in the game's strategy. The starting point for our game is the discovery, by our heroin, of an underground polluted river spreading its tainted waters in the nearby lake. In her journey to the source of pollution, our heroin faces natural and artificial enemies: alligators in quest for food, poisonous flying fishes, but also mischievous guards of pollutant reservoirs. Mastering game' levels and math' levels, in a precisely defined succession, the heroin follows the path which leads from the shore of the lake up to the mountain where the source of pollution (a well hidden lab) lies.

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