Emission Mission rose out of the realization that we didn't know a whole lot about the energy that was powering our lives. In our research, we found rich databases with lots of dense information, which would be impossible to parse for someone doing casual research. We decided to take it to the next step and make information about localized energy sources available to even the youngest audience!
Emission Mission provides an interactive experience for children to learn about energy sources in their local area. It allows users to input a zip code and will look up energy production information for that specific power grid. Then, it allows users to choose to add their own power plant and see how it affects their local region!
Emission Mission is built using vanilla JavaScript, HTML, and CSS with the intention of being able to run on any device with a browser!
Finding datasets with relevant and specific information was difficult, and parsing that data was also difficult. Thanks to epa.gov for making the data readily available!
We're proud of the presentation of our project. It was very important to us that our project be approachable yet informative, and we believe we succeeded in that goal.
We learned a lot about the power sources near us, the pros and cons, and when each is appropriate to use. Did you know that New York doesn't have any active coal plants as of 2020?
On the technical side, one of our members learned JavaScript from scratch, and another used Git for the first time. We all learned a lot about webpage styling and what JS is capable of on its own!
Emission Mission still has a long way to go to reach a wider and younger demographic. We want to expand the game part of the project, ensuring it's accessible to all, but still can engage audiences in a way that they will want to keep learning more. We also want to add more information about local energy sources, like specific pollutants or energy costs, without making the game unapproachable. We believe everyone should be conscious of their energy footprint, even at a young age.