I like the idea of moving through life by making. So, I draw, I build, and I’ve also been attempting to write. It all comes from what I’ve lived, the people I know, and the ones I’ll meet along the way.  
Information
Sketchbook
Projects





























CV


05

An experiential tool to help children understand the water cycle.
Consultancy
Tool Design + Information Design
2024

As a part of an educational initiative to integrate environmental concepts into engaging participatory activities for middle school students in India, we designed a series of games focused on the resource cycles of water and waste. These games introduce new concepts at each level as students progress through higher grades.

The core objective was to foster systems thinking and collective reflection on the real-world complexities of water and waste management. This method diverges from traditional teaching methods by utilising experiential learning for a diverse student cohort. My role focused on creating intuitive game mechanics and developing visually accessible materials to support both participants and facilitators.


Conceptual model for the game, followed by initial concept tests conducted internally


This interactive tool, called ‘Rhim-Jhim’ (Drizzle), is designed to engage students with concepts related to the water cycle, water consumption, groundwater recharge, and the relationships among ecosystems, human settlements, and water sustainability. It introduces players to real-world water management challenges and progressively increases in complexity across levels.
For younger students, the game begins with groups representing natural ecosystems such as Rainforest, Grassland, and Desert. Each group occupies islands on a board that differ in rainfall and groundwater availability.  Participants receive rainfall marbles representing water and must make careful decisions about their ecosystem’s water consumption, maintaining the island’s groundwater levels, and whether to migrate to other islands as the rounds progress. The gameplay simulates how excess or insufficient rainfall directly affects the survival of an ecosystem, emphasising the importance of groundwater recharge and highlighting the differing consumption needs of each ecosystem. As they move through the grades, challenges like years without rainfall are introduced in the game.

Initial tests were conducted with local community children

At the more advanced levels, the game shifts to focus on human settlements, introducing new mechanics for population growth, economic development, and settlement expansion, while emphasising how human activity impacts water resources. Players work to collectively earn ‘star points’ that represent economic development by forming and expanding settlements on the island board, with each settlement’s size and success depending on water availability. They must carefully balance increasing water demands with limited resources while exploring cooperative options such as joining settlements to achieve collective star points. The gameplay models how human activity directly influences water sustainability and highlights the need for growth strategies that remain in balance with available water resources.

Gameplay followed by a debrief session held by a facilitator
The game's design process began with research into curriculum needs and water systems. As the information designer on the team, I helped shape intuitive mechanics and visual materials that made the game accessible and engaging. We experimented with different versions of the island board, keeping the classroom's spatial and budget constraints in mind. I also experimented with multiple ways for players to represent water consumption during the game. In the initial tests, we used stickers, but they quickly became messy, hard to manage, and weren’t reusable. To address this, I designed a box mechanism with a built-in limit on the number of water marbles that could be added, representing the minimum water required for each ecosystem. This not only reduced the amount of counting players had to do but also made the process more intuitive and helped participants focus more on the gameplay.

Tests were conducted for the advanced levels within the game
The project concluded with training facilitators to run classroom sessions effectively. Today, this game is actively deployed in government schools in Mumbai and Bangalore as a part of their curriculum, fostering collaborative problem-solving and contextual understanding of environmental challenges.
Acknowledgements: Srinidhi, Sukanya, Yashwin, Pragati, Karthik, Sandesh, Akhilesh, Kavin, and Sumit; Bharat and Sruthi for all their advice; to the partners at TiDe; and the children at the community library.