As a simple model home inspires questions about solar energy, so Leaves inspires questions about the world.

The Reason for Leaves

Over 6.7 billion people now populate the earth. For the earth to continue to sustain its wonderful biodiversity (from coral reefs to polar bears to rainforests to humanity itself), humanity needs to make important changes. Leaves is designed to help facilitate those changes by educating, entertaining, and inspiring people. Regarding education, a Chinese proverb relates:

Tell me and I'll forget,
Show me and I may remember,
Involve me and I will understand.

While books, lectures, and movies can be powerful educational tools, games have a unique potential to involve people in a social and meaningful way. When one is done playing Leaves, it's time to use the knowledge and game dynamics learned to get involved in the larger game of life itself!

Additional Research

For those players who want to learn more about the themes and subjects raised in the Leaves game, finding information is easy. Many of the question cards have a reference number (R#) in the lower right corner, and players can find the matching reference number in the back of the Rules and References booklet which is included with each game. This booklet has reference information for 57 sources ranging from books, magazines, newspapers, films, websites, proverbs, audio recordings, photographs, and music albums. 

Design and Manufacturing

Leaves was designed and manufactured in the United States using recycled and recyclable materials and vegetable-oil-based inks.   

Alliance Card Decks

Many organizations do important work to improve the physical environment as well as human social systems. Leaves is designed as an Earth Operating System to bring a wide range of knowledge from diverse and seemingly disparate causes into one unified and focused vision, within the social and entertaining context of game play.

Four organizations (the Rainforest Action Network, Trees for the Future, Solar Schoolhouse, and the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education) have already agreed to create alliance card decks with us to work within the Leaves Earth Operating System. If your group or organization is interested in creating an alliance card deck which features your specific areas of expertise and focus, please contact us at info@eosgame.com!

Additional Card Decks

As new card decks are developed, they will be available online from the website (www.eosgame.com). In addition to the alliance card decks, EOSGAME will be producing a children's card deck specifically designed for players under the age of ten years old.

Background

Seeking to educate and involve students and the general public in key environmental issues, Dave Greulich, a Lodi High School English teacher and Environmental Club advisor, made a blueprint for an environmental education board game in the fall of 2004. While Dave's environmental research and teaching continued, his blueprint remained in a file folder for three years because Dave had never manufactured a board game before. Then in November of 2007, Dave met John O'Neill (a professional artist and game designer) at the San Francisco Green Festival.  Dave showed John the blueprint for the game and the two agreed to develop and manufacture it. Dave and John worked hard developing Leaves for nearly a year and in December of 2008, the first copies of the game rolled off an assembly line in Michigan.

In 2009, Leaves won two Dr. Toy awards, received recognition in the press,  and gained entrance into prestigious museum gift shops as well as game stores. Additionally, its question cards were used at The Youth Energy Summit in Sacramento, and the games were included in two celebrity venues: Earth Day in Hollywood and the Grammy Green Room.

About Dave Greulich

Currently in his fifteenth year teaching high school English and his sixth year advising the Lodi High School Environmental Club, Dave is included in Who's Who Among America's Teachers (2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007 editions) and is featured in the book and DVD Teaching Solar: A Teacher's Guide to Integrating Solar Energy into Classroom Curriculum (2009). Dave drives hybrid cars, harvests solar energy on the roof of his home with a 4.5 KW photovoltaic system, composts kitchen scraps, and recycles.  Dave is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (1992).

About John O'Neill

Professional artist and game designer John O'Neill has received recognition in both the electronic game world with award-winning titles Lifespan and Dolphin's Rune, and in the board game arena with his game Paradice. John brings a deep experience in translating meaning and message into interactive metaphor, designed to inform, inspire, and empower through play.

About the Photographs

The photograph of earth at the center of the Leaves' game board is from NASA.  All the photographs on the game board circle (where the play pieces travel) are from the Bob Walker archive at the Oakland Museum of California. It seems fitting that while Bob's passion to protect the land of a local region spurred him to photograph it in order to inspire the public to protect it, these same photos are now being used in Leaves to inspire the public to protect the planet itself. Below is information about Bob Walker from the book entitled After the Storm: Bob Walker and the East Bay Regional Park District, written by Christopher Beaver:

"In the late 1980s and early 1990s, environmental activist and photographer Bob Walker roamed the open spaces of the East Bay documenting the natural treasures in Bay Area residents' 'backyard.' Some of these places were already preserved as parklands, while others were landscapes threatened by development. Walker's photos and his writing became instrumental in shaping public support of the East Bay Regional Park District. In the late 1980s, the District increased from 60,000 acres to more than 97,000 acres of protected open space, encompassing 65 parks. After his death, Walker's photographic archive of more than 40,000 35mm color slides was preserved in the collection of the Oakland Museum of California."