The Specialized Information Services division of the National Library of Medicine recently debuted, Tox Mystery, an interactive environmental health website for children ages 7-10. Tox Mystery provides a fun, game-like introduction to environmental health hazards found in the home.

The objective of the game is to find all of the hazards located in each of the rooms. Toxie the Cat accompanies players as they navigate through each room in the house to seek out potential hazards. When a player clicks on a hazard, a multiple choice question on the hazard is read by Toxie. When the player selects the right answer he/she is given a positive message with more information about the chemical or environmental hazard. If the player selects an incorrect answer, Toxie provides a hint to the correct response. As the player finds all of the hazards in a room, that room is “checked off” in the house map.

When the player finds all of the hazards in the house, they are rewarded with a surprise animation and the option to print out a certificate.

ToxMystery can be used individually or in classroom setting. The website includes supplemental resources for teachers to use with their students, including fill in the blanks exercises, word search games and matching activities.

ToxMystery is located at: http://toxmystery.nlm.nih.gov/

This entry was posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 9:48 am and is filed under Consumer Health, General (all entries), Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.