PEWI is a digital game-based learning tool. PEWI = People in Ecosystems Watershed Integration. Teachers use the game with students. Extension educators and watershed coordinators use the game with landowners and other stakeholders.
PEWI is a university-created game, funded by generous donors and grants, and it is free and at no cost to users, including institutional users, like schools. We also have a Teachers Guide, which is also free and at no cost.
PEWI helps people understand the impacts of agricultural and natural land uses. PEWI is a simulation-based on science. It shows people how to explore the impacts of 15 land uses on biodiversity, water quality, wildlife, production agriculture, and more complex topics such as carbon sequestration. Users confront tradeoffs in ecosystem service outcomes. PEWI shows the data in both visual and numeric formats, including a flyover (drone) mode.
Select the Teachers Guide from the top menu to open a site dedicated to teachers and instructors from middle school to college, including lesson plans, career videos, and project-based learning and 4-H applications.
To use the PEWI game now, click here.
Want to learn PEWI? Watch this brief video tutorial (2 min).
Or watch this longer tutorial: this more comprehensive video tutorial (5 min).
A team created PEWI over several years under the direction of Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore. Hear her story. Watch this video. (12 min)
Questions? Email pewi@iastate.edu.