Project Mentor: Professor Khanjan Mehta, Creative Inquiry

 

2025 Impact Fellows: 

Alina Basilis '26
Juliana Bove '27
Shirina Rong '28
Alnur Sagat '28
Poshitha Reddy Upparapalli '28

 

Project Description:

Almaty, the commercial capital of Kazakhstan and a major hub in Central Asia, is facing enormous challenges with sustainable urban development. Uncontrolled migration burdens the housing infrastructure, outdoor air quality, access to clean water and waste-water management systems at the constantly-growing periphery of the city leading to negative environmental consequences which compromise economic growth. For example, despite investing over $500M over the last 15 years in recycling systems, only 11% of municipal solid waste is actually recycled.

Save Tuba is a mobile game application for students aged eight to eleven to help them develop sustainable behaviors through gamification and inquiry-based learning techniques. Save Tuba engages its users emotionally through the main character Tuba, an endangered saiga antelope found in the Kazakh Steppe. Elementary school students interact with this character while completing learning exercises and activities to gain a practical understanding of applied sustainability and develop sustainable habits. Besides positive habit formation and behavioral change, engaging with game characters and emotions have also been shown to improve children’s long-term memory and cognitive abilities such as creative problem-solving.

The Save Tuba team will work closely with the faculty from Abai Pedagogical University, Almaty Management University, the Kazakh Education Ministry, and other stakeholders (student volunteers, public/private schools, project managers) to maintain the pilot program in several schools over the next year. We are seeking students from all majors across campus with a deep interest in sustainability education and action. Students with exceptional communication skills and interest in intercultural collaboration are particularly welcome.

To learn more about the Save Tuba team: https://savetuba.blog/