New board game promotes children's oral health
Staff at the School of Health and Welfare (HHJ) at Jönköping University, together with game development students from the University of Skövde, have started an interdisciplinary collaboration project to develop a board game that will teach children about their diet and cavities. The goal is to eventually investigate the educational effect of the game for children through a research project.
Last week, Folktandvården (the Public Dental Service) in Värnamo organized a 6-year party, where children had the opportunity to visit Folktandvården and, among other things, test the board game together with project managers, staff and parents. The game is aimed at children aged 5-8 years and is based on the educational tool "Sockerklockan" (the Sugarclock), which aims to teach children the pros and cons of a varied diet, meal patterns and consumption of sugar.
Malin Stensson, Associate Professor in Oral Health Sciences, Hanna Ahonen, Senior Lecturer, and Bertil Lindenfalk, Lecturer/PhD student, all at HHJ, played the game with the children.
A future research project
In December last year, the project team developed a prototype of the cardboard game, which was also tested with children and received a good response.
I december testades en prototyp av spelet, skapad av kartong.
In February, the project team received verification support for the development of the game in collaboration with Science Park. If the pilot testing and production of the prototype are successful, a research project is planned to evaluate the educational impact of the game on children's and their families' views on diet and oral health. The aim is to create an engaging game that can be played with staff and/or parents, to promote interaction and learning.
