Screenshot of the game featuring three animated characters at a party scene.
Australia's leading tech awards has praised an interactive online game designed and created by ECU researchers, which aims to teach teens about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.
ECU's Simulation and Immersive Digital Technology Group received a Merit Award in the Not-for-Profit & Community category in at the national iAwards.
It follows their recent win at the 2022 WA INCITE Awards and makes the team eligible to represent Australia in the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards in Pakistan in December.
Sideffect GamePlan is the first online game of its kind in Australia and teaches year 9 and 10 students about the risks of using alcohol and other drugs.
It was created through a collaboration between ECU and Sideffect Australia, with funding from the Australian Government Department of Health.
The iAwards are Australia's longest running and most broadly scoped innovation recognition program, promoting excellence in the Australian digital ecosystem.
It recognises and rewards excellence in Australian innovation that makes a difference and has the potential to create positive change in the community.
ECU Senior Lecturer and Researcher Dr Brennen Mills said the team was honoured and humbled by the recognition.
"It has been such a rewarding experience working on this project, partnering with NGO Sideffect Australia, and with the great ECU personnel from the Simulation & Immersive Digital Technology Group," Dr Mills said.
"The impact of what we have developed seems to really be resonating both with end-users and high-end decision-makers, as evidenced by the acknowledgment of this national award."
Dr Mills said there were approximately 1.3 million Year 9 and 10 students in Australia, who receive varied, limited or no alcohol and/or drug education in school or at home.
"Early engagement with inappropriate alcohol and other drug behaviours in these formative years makes it far more difficult and less likely later intervention to reorient young adults away from debilitating alcohol and/or other drug behaviours will be effective," he said.
"So we need to intervene with adolescents and give them all the tools they need to stay on the right path early in these incredibly important formative years.
"High school provides an ideal environment for that early engagement educational intervention. Sideffect GamePlan is a freely available, standardised, evidence-informed, easy-to-adopt resource that will deliver this education in an engaging fashion, demonstrated to resonate with adolescents."
Dr Mills said the gamified education module is presently being piloted among a number of schools in Western Australia.
"National rollout has been approved by the Federal Government Department of Health, and Sideffect Australia are presently working towards this with the aid of the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER)," he said.
"Given the scope, enthusiasm, success and support the project has received, Sideffect Australia, in consultation with the ECU team, are presently in negotiations with the Federal Government Department of Health surrounding research and development of a similar alcohol and other drug focussed educational game for year 7 and 8 students."
For more information on how the Sideffect GamePlan was created, watch the video below.
