Caring about a number is hard/ Guest post by Karan Gathani

Conservation statistics like habitat loss and extinction rates are often too abstract to resonate with people. Caring about a number requires more effort than a scrolling thumb is willing to give.

Save the Newts - The Volunteer Effect/ game by Karan Gathani

Games like Newt Crosser and Save the Newts (in 2D and 3D) change this by making the situation personal. When you are the one moving an amphibian across a dark road, the stakes become real. In Save the Newts, you see the larger picture: survival numbers rise with volunteers and fall without them. In the 3D version, details like a draining flashlight battery communicate the difficulty of the task far better than a graph ever could.

Newt Rescue - 3D game/ by Karan Gathani

While online games won't replace policy, they make abstract issues immediate for those who will never visit these locations. Reading about a migration is one thing; playing through it is a different kind of knowing.

I encourage you to play all three games. It takes less than ten minutes, but you will come away with a specific understanding of the challenges these animals face and perhaps a desire to help the volunteers who protect them.

You can play all of these games and more that teach people about the wildlife, habitats and neighbors of the San Francisco Bay Area on this website.

Karan Gathani has been volunteering with the Newt Patrol and BioBlitz Club for many years. Make sure you check out the other games on his page!