Though Earth Day is behind us for the year, an app developed by a La Jolla resident with inspiration from students at UC San Diego looks to provide daily steps to help combat climate change year-round.
Ron Kagan’s app, called PlanetFlip, provides s with tasks that researchers have said can help reduce emissions attributed to climate change, such as taking public transportation (to reduce the number of private vehicles on the roads) or eating a meatless meal (aimed at reducing methane gas released by livestock manure and a loss of trees to create grazing land). s can complete the tasks to earn points for prizes and bragging rights.
They also can a team and collectively compete for prizes, take and photos and interact with one another.
The app currently is web-based and free to use.
In addition to the tasks, there are games intended to promote learning about environmental measures such as recycling. The app also provides information and resources on larger efforts such as installing solar s or driving an electric car.
Though Kagan has a background in software and engineering, he wasn’t intending to explore environmental causes until meeting with UCSD students.
After writing a book about how technology could be used to help teams work together, Kagan was asked to speak at UCSD as a visiting scholar. After his talks, he sometimes would have coffee with students.
During one of those meetings, a student asked whether software could be built to involve more people in efforts to address climate change.
“I hadn’t really tiptoed into climate change, but their enthusiasm and eagerness to propel that forward is where PlanetFlip came from,” Kagan said. “We jumped right in with some ideas. I made time to design and build it. The focus is looking at what we can do as individuals on a daily basis to take on climate change and sustainability and better understand how technology can help us do that.”
With the app, “s do not have to wait for the government to laws,” he added. “There is so much that individuals can do. The goal was to make learning more and doing more more fun.”
The app was originally rolled out on the UCSD campus in La Jolla, with local sponsors providing prizes for the top teams. Now, Kagan is looking for a broader rollout with more sponsors and more prizes.
“I really like how it turned out, but we keep building more things for it, and one of the things we’ve begun is adding more games to PlanetFlip,” he said. “As we expand, we’re looking for more climate groups that are interested in participating. We are also building up an AI algorithm to make the app more customizable to one’s interests.”
Given that the idea for PlanetFlip started with students, the updated app will go back to UCSD for more student testing.
“The whole idea of climate change and the environment really mobilized me,” Kagan said. “So I’m grateful to the students for opening my eyes.”
Learn more at planetflip.org. ◆
