Zoodemic

Zoodemic is a serious game for educating elementary, middle, and high school students about zoonotic disease prevention. A student can test their gaming skills by vanquishing multiple waves of viruses. Power-ups can be obtained by answering relevant educational questions related to basic hygiene, epidemiology, and zoonotic disease prevention. High scores are ranked via the leaderboard. Educational content in the game was sourced from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/in-action/influenza-and-zoonoses-education.html), Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (https://resources.cste.org/yia), the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Iowa State University Center for Food Security & Public Health (https://content.cfsph.iastate.edu/YouthInAg/yinag-kids.php & https://content.cfsph.iastate.edu/YouthInAg/yinag-teen.php). A student can also level up by obtaining codes after completing an online course in zoonotic diseases. Two free courses, one for kids and another for teens, is available via the Youth In Agriculture website (https://www.unmc.edu/publichealth/yia/education/index.html). Users can obtain codes at the following website: https://www.unmc.edu/publichealth/yia/ While published by the University of Nebraska Omaha College of Information Science and Technology, this project is a partnership between University of Nebraska Omaha and University of Nebraska Medical Center.