Dengue, Zika and Chicungunha: The use of a mathematic concept to develop an educational game for helping on fighting important viral diseases

Abstract

Dengue is the leading cause of viral death worldwide. The vector Aedes aegypti mosquito is also responsible for Zika and Chincungunha transmission, another very compromising viral diseases. As the understanding of the vector life cycle and its habitat is important for preventing and fighting against these diseases, we propose to use a mathematic concept, graphos, and a problem-based situation (the removal of potential breeding sites for mosquitoes in the player city) to design a computational game that may help on spreading information and to stimulate a players proactive virtual and real behavior. Thus this paper describes the design and construction of an educational computer game called "Graphos against mosquitos," based on graphos, a mathematics theoretical concept. We designed the Graphos game using as the main elements: a child, twelve neighborhood blocks, mosquitoes, streets and containers where mosquitoes lay eggs (tires, cans, bottles, plants with water deposits). In the game, the player (Avatar) is the main element that should "walk in" the streets (edges) of the city, removing the potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes in each block (vertices). As this game is based on the mathematics theoretical concept graphos using two dimensions, the city has two distinct vertices that are the beginning and end of it, which discriminate the beginning and end of the game. The player should remove all containers of each street, avoiding mosquitoes growth and passing only one time for each of them. As containers are removed, the player gains points and is prevented to return to the previous street. In this game the removal of all containers that pose risk of becoming mosquito breeding sites, without coming back to the previous street but only forward, is translatable into " graphos language". When finishing the game properly, it opens a final screen where the player is awarded with a medal. On this screen, the player can write his/her name, being invited to act as a "health worker" no longer in virtual form, but in the real life. Through teaching by using computational material ruled by mathematical concepts such as graphos, we hope to stimulate and contribute for fighting and controlling the vector of these serious viral diseases.