Soil Guardians: A visual and accessible digital game for learning soil functions

Soil processes get very little attention in early education environments, in spite of the fact that soil is very important in food, water control, biodiversity, and climate change. Soil Guardians aims to fill that gap and assist in understanding soil processes in such a way that it can develop and launch a digital game that teaches soil processes in an easy-to-grasp manner for children.

The game is structured around short scenarios that illustrate what may be considered typical circumstances in which soil may be expected to improve or deteriorate. Interaction between players and the game is achieved through specific actions represented by icons, and the players can immediately see what happens in the scenario. In this case, development is expected to be device independent and suited for environments in multilingual or low-resource educational environments.

Currently, the project is refining its conceptual and visual language and its first level of interactive features. Priorities of development include the translation of soil functionality into engaging gameplay that is suitable for the classroom and other environments. Later on, as the game develops, it will be shaped by feedback from teaching and research professionals in terms of which scenarios and practices are reflected in real-world soil situations and teaching directions.

Acknowledgement

The project is funded through the EGU Special Activity Fund 2026.