How does your project communicate the relationship between the environment and health?

Multiple examples of the relationship between the environment and health are made throughout the entirety of the board game. The vast majority of the squares players can land on are green “Good Choice” squares and purple “Bad Choice” squares. The “Good Choice” and “Bad Choice” squares direct the player to draw a card that will list either a positive or negative choice. Because they impact the microbiome, the choices make players gain or lose microbes, thus changing the diversity of their microbiome. The “choices” listed on cards are very mundane and common, such as what foods we eat and where we go during the day, and though they are seemingly minuscule choices they can accumulate to form major changes on the wellness of our microbiomes and overall health. Each choice and its impacts on our health were weighted so that players can form a clear understanding of how impactful certain daily decisions are on our health. The bottom of each card also explains how each choice directly influences the health of the microbiome. There are also “sick day”, ”wild card”, and “disease day” squares that show that sometimes there are factors out of your control such as getting sick and having to take antibiotics (which hurt your microbiome) but it’s not the end of the world If that’s the case. These squares show that sometimes antibiotics are needed to cure a certain sickness or manage a disease, but you can still have a healthy microbiome and bounce back by making good lifestyle choices.

Who is your target audience?

The target audience of this project is families with members of all ages. We recommend this board game for ages 8 and up so as to ensure that the message can be fully comprehended by players but can still be received at a young and impressionable age. We chose to target this particular audience because we want to improve the general public's knowledge of the human microbiome. By placing the subject in a fun, easily digestible, and accessible family-friendly board game, we are able to raise awareness of the importance of our habits and the impacts of lifestyle and the environment on our health. We believe that people are never too young or too old to gain control over their own wellbeing and this board game serves as a reminder to take care of our microbiota. We also hope that by introducing ideas for small lifestyle changes, such as buying whole-grain bread over white bread, it inspires people to start making small changes in their own lives and instilling these small, healthy habits in their kids.

As an Ambassador, how do you plan to share your message with your target audience?

We plan to share this game with our high school biology classes because that is a relevant and readily available place to share our knowledge and educate our peers about how the choices they make affect these tiny but vital creatures in our gut. The game connects to the class as an extension of base knowledge the class provides, however it is, unfortunately, a topic that isn’t currently covered in the curriculum. We also plan to share the game with middle school science classes and elementary students above the age of 8 to begin educating them about this important ecosystem in their bodies so that they develop healthy habits at an early age and can go home and further educate their family and friends. Another idea is to place this game in the waiting lobby of doctors offices, especially family doctors and pediatricians because that would be a place where our target audience is readily available. The board game is an inspiration to hopefully start a conversation with the doctor about gut health and how to develop and maintain healthy habits and make the right choices. The general public doesn’t know much about the microbiome even though it’s so important to our health. We certainly didn’t know how vital it was until we took the STEAM course so hopefully our project serves to start a conversation and inspire people to make better lifestyle choices for their gut and overall health.