I began coding in the spring of 2017; first, I became proficient with the language processing, and then I started learning html and css (which language should I learn next?). After learning some processing basics in my Programming Foundations Master’s course, I thought it would be neat to put my newfound coding skills to the test in order to create an interactive game.

As I’ve expressed in other areas of this site, I’m really interested in the way in which toxins in the environment can impact human health. In my time managing the web presence of several environmental health research centers, I’ve realized that this topic can quickly become overwhelming and overly-scientific for the average person. Trying to inform a lay person how to avoid chemicals in their daily life usually goes a little something like this…

Me: So you see there are these chemicals called “Phthalates.”

Layperson: Okay. What are those?

Me: Well, they’re this plasticizing chemical that can cause early puberty in girls, preterm birth, and adverse effects on the development of male reproductive systems.

Layperson: Yeesh, that sounds awful! How do I avoid phthalates?

Me: Well, they’re kind of unavoidable. They’re used in products such as fragrances, makeup, lotion, nail polish, hairspray, liquid soap, aftershave, toys, flooring materials, toys, car interiors, medical devices like blood IV bags and tubing, vinyl wallpaper, and even vinyl shower curtains.

Layperson: *Stares at me with scared, shocked expression*

For this reason, I thought it would be really cool to make a game that makes this terrifying and dense topic fun!

Environmental Health Jeopardy is a game based off of the TV game show “Jeopardy” in which the objective is to correctly answer as many questions in environmental health-related categories as possible. Participants choose a category and a point value which brings up a multiple choice question for them to answer (and, of course, the jeopardy song plays while they think about their answer).

I had fun coming up with the design for the interface for this game. I wanted the user to feel like they were actually in the Jeopardy studio, so I combined multiple images to create a question interface similar to the one on the show.

I wrote questions and assigned point values for four different categories: food, personal care products, home, and clothing.

Here’s an example question (Food for 200 points):

When purchasing vegetables from the grocery store, which of the following options will offer the lowest levels of harmful chemicals?

1. Dehydrated vegetables
2. Organic vegetables
3. Frozen vegetables
4. Canned vegetables

In order to ensure the game was actually educational for players, I realized I also needed to provide players with feedback after they selected their answers. After selecting an option, the following message pops up:

The correct answer is b, “Organic vegetables.” Dehydrated, canned, and frozen vegetables are all potentially grown with pesticides, which can have health impacts ranging from headaches to cancer. Additionally, canned and plastic-wrapped food items can contain BPA, a chemical which can impact endocrine system functioning.

The full list of questions and answers can be found here.

Additional feedback on answering correctly is supposed to be provided with sound effects (error beeping noise for incorrect answers and happy sparkling noise for correct answers), but, unfortunately, this is where I began to run into issues. After many hours of trial and error, I still was unable to sync the “correct sound” with answering correctly and the “incorrect sound” with answering incorrectly. The program ended up making random noises unlinked to the solutions for each question. I also ran into issues with getting the scoreboard to update as the player made their selections.

I’m not ready to give up yet, though! I’ve gotten so far, and I know that learning more about coding basics will allow me to attack this project once more with fresh eyes. The next step will be to teach myself Javascript, which I’ve already learned the basics of while learning processing, so that I can finish the project, convert this game to JavaScript, and post it online!

Keep an eye out for updates on this in the future!