Want to learn about the interconnectedness and dependencies of an ecosystem? Build one yourself.
In Second Life, a virtual world where people reinvent themselves, buy real estate, create and sell products, have sex, host charity events, film movies, etc., Laukosargas Svarog has created her own ecosystem on the virtual island of Svarga:
The result of a year's work, Laukosargas Svarog's island of Svarga ... is a fully-functioning ecosystem, adding life or something like it to the verdant-looking but arid pallette Linden Lab offers with its world. It begins with her artificial clouds, which are pushed along by Linden's internal wind system.
"If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours," she tells me. "Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it's the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It's all interdependent."
Cool!
(Via BB)
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Comments
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Chris Schults Posted 4:18 am
31 May 2006
Members of Second Life can use their Linden Dollars to purchase virtual trees. That virtual money gets converted to real-world currency, which then gets donated to FUF.
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Chris Schults Posted 8:50 am
02 Jun 2006
Svarga shows some of the amazing potential of SL to mimick real life and demonstrate the delicate balance of earth's various life forms. Which makes me wonder about the political and educational possibilities of these kinds of simulated environments. If you wanted to get all Al Gore in here, you could have the island's balance fall apart as more and more residents visit, using up resources and trampling the soil. Or you could give residents control of small plots on the island to learn how to balance resources and land use wisely. Any businesses that operate on the island might have real impacts on the ecosystem based on the resources they use and the waste they create. The possibilities are endless.
While global warming might be an inconvenient truth that people don't want to face, creating more interactive, fun ways for people to learn about how the Earth operates might help convince new audiences of the importance of sound environmental policies. At the very least, it would be more appealing than watching Al Gore give a powerpoint presentation.
(Hat tip)
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