To increase hands-on learning opportunities for National Estuarine Research Reserve visitors, staff at reserves in Delaware, Florida, and Texas worked together to develop three interactive games for visitor center touch screen displays. The art and game code were developed by students at the University of Delaware. Each game allows people to explore an important aspect of the estuary, the animals that live there, and how people can help the estuary.

About this resource

These video clips demonstrate beta versions of the games, now installed on visitor center interactive screens.

CrabbyQuest (beta): This game shows how crabs move up an estuary based on freshwater-salinity gradient, but in a less structured side-scroller setting. Users can also collect oysters to build gabions and remove trash from the shoreline.

Estuary Adventure (beta): This game uses a maze to show how blue crabs move up an estuary based on salinity. Another piece of the game was an homage to horseshoe crab spawning surveys. And a third component illustrated how oyster gabions and bulkheads affect wave damage to shorelines.

SWMP ROMP (beta): Users incorporate resilience elements to defend against a storm event.

Game Highlights (beta) - This clip provides a quick preview of the final three games produced for visitor centers.

These video were shared as part of a Collaborative Science for Estuaries webinar given by Maggie Pletta (Education Coordinator, Delaware NERR) on March 12, 2019.