Cloud Computing - An Educational Game on Weather Phenomena

We experience weather every day, yet many people do not know how different weather phenomena come about. In this work, we present "Cloud Computing", an educational game that instills a meaningful subset of the according relationships and mecha- nisms. In the game, weather phenomena are animated based on environmental parameters entered by the user. The user is engaged by "weather quests", for example the task to create a thunderstorm. The user improves his highscore and levels up solving such quests. The challenge of setting the parameters rises with an increasing level, but exuberant difficulty is diligently avoided. Intermittent tests and evaluations involving potential users determined the final design of the game. The available scientific data significantly shaped its basic structure as well as its aesthetics. Cloud Computing was thoroughly evaluated by more than thirty persons in order to ensure its effectiveness - both in terms of engagement and learning targets. The survey is included towards the end of this paper.