Algae Bloom Dynamics

Algae Bloom Dynamics (ABD) is an augmented reality art, science, and game simulation for experiencing how algae blooms occur, and where to find and fix their sources in lakes and waterways globally.


Educate and inform people in an engaging augmented reality that is experienced in your own environment.


Experience a clear-water lake that begins to have imbalances in phosphorus and nitrogen from human activities and threats from invasive species. Local, regional, and global threats are presented from:

- agriculture
- household waste
- stormwater runoff
- wastewater systems
- road salt
- invasive species
- fossil fuels

The project includes animated 3D models of:
- Fish: Yellow Perch, Rainbow Smelt, and Bass
- Zooplankton: Daphnia and Spiny Water Flea
- Phytoplankton: Microcystis and Aphanocapsa
- Mollusks: Zebra Mussels
- Macroalgae: Nitella


ABD is a project created by the Eco Resilience Global Games Research Group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The project is funded in part by the Jefferson Project. For more information, please see our website. Algae Bloom Dynamic AR: https://sites.google.com/view/algae-bloom-dynamics/algae-bloom-dynamics

Eco Resilience Games:
https://sites.google.com/view/eco-resilience/home

Eco Resilience Games is creating virtual worlds that inspire us to preserve our actual ones. Whether we are enabling people to experientially see, hear and touch plankton in new ways in order to understand their vital importance to freshwater ecology, or making it possible to become a water droplet traveling through an entire watershed, we are using advanced game technology creatively to introduce people to new worlds, new perspectives, and new systems to help understand emerging environmental knowledge and the vital need to work together globally for a sustainable, eco resilient future.