Root wins Rep. Tom Kean’s 2024 Congressional App Challenge in New Jersey’s Seventh District

When asked what inspired the creation of Root, the students said, “When we first started to talk about environmental change, we got into an argument. What were the negative side effects of clean energy? How effective is carbon sequestration? Many of our ideas were thwarted by our lack of understanding of the science behind the problem and were centered around politics rather than facts and science, but why didn’t we have this foundational knowledge? Collectively, we have gone to four different schools, and neither of us can recall a real focus or longer-term study of environmental science. After consulting teachers, we realized that things like climate change and its inner workings are oversimplified and over politicized. A 2016 poll even shows that of the 75 % of teachers that cover climate change, only 1-2 hours are spent on the topic. But even during this time, kids are bombarded with biased and politicized views with no substantial supporting evidence. In turn, students then become polarized on their environmental views because of the vast differences in what they are being told. In a world where climate change and environmental science are so important, our education fails to give students the tools to create change. 

Recently we’ve had the opportunity to create our own type of environmental change. Over the past year, we’ve interned for a Material Science research team at Rutgers, on the cutting edge of the intersection between environmental and material science. There, we were inspired by how interesting and innovative solutions to climate change can be, with their novel form of concrete and other building materials potentially revolutionizing the cement industry through carbon sequestration and low-temperature production of cement. 

While our inspiration for climate education comes from research and dialogue, Root’s user interface’s inspiration is from Duolingo. Duolingo’s entire interface is very uniquely crafted, with an emphasis on clear instruction, but most importantly consistency. By forcing consistency, you get to see slow but steady progress of real applicable learning. For the game aspect of Root, we were inspired by Tomogatchi, Japanese digital pets that took kids by storm because they were fun toys, even though they required real care and diligence to maintain. The maintenance became part of the fun, with their fragility becoming a positive. We use the same model for Root, with plant characters that kids will want to take care of and return to every day.”