biodiversity

The nature and environmental game Ecogon not only offers a whole lot of fun, but additionally aims to pursue the objective of embedding basic knowledge about the manifoldness of the ecosystems of each participant involved. Biodiversity is an important key term for the understanding of nature education. The term biodiversity is also known as biological variety. Biodiversity consists of three different areas which are closely linked and depending on one another:

• variety of ecosystems
• variety of species
• genetic variety within species

First of all you have to understand the term ecosystem (link here), in order to understand the variety of ecosystems. The variety of ecosystems plays the same role in the co-op game Ecogon as it does in reality. Implying only a fraction of nature, ecosystems in Ecogon occur in the form of different habitats like “Forest”, “Edge of the Forest” and “Meadow”. Plants and animals are bound to a specific ecosystem. The dependency on salt water of marine animals is equally given as the dependency on clean spawning waters of amphibians. Due to our educational game you will experience the consequences if an ecosystem is disrupted by an external factor and the effects on species living in it. The maintenance of ecological systems ensures the perpetuation of biodiversity.

The variety of species measures the variation range of biological species within a specific habitat. The term refers to the entirety of flora and fauna. About 10 to 100 million different animal and plant species exist according to an estimate of scientists. Our educational game Ecogon offers 61 different species up to now. Therefore you can be curious to see what will follow.
However, the external factor of humans causes significant damage to the environment due to deforestation, land degradation, land sealing, overexploitation as well as intensifying the greenhouse effect which ultimately contributes to climate change. The negative impacts of humans reduce the variety of species worldwide to the extent which no other being was able to do before!

Vast amounts of genes are the basis of genetic variety of all organisms. The carriers of genetic information, also known as DNA, are responsible for the various characteristics of living organisms. One kind of gene is the allele, which provides different characteristics of a certain attribute of a living being. The coat color of a dog or the color of a flower can be pointed out as examples. Due to genetic variety it is possible for species to adapt to changing environmental conditions like drought, heat, frost and other stressors.