1. Pingus Technical Writing Exercise
Pingus Presentation, Pingus Penguins: Writing Good Instructions activity, TeachEngineering.org
Image source: Ingo Ruhnke [GNU general public license]
Pingus Technical Writing Exercise

2. Environmental Problem: Water Pollution
Polluted water at Rodeo Beach near San Francisco CA
Image source: 2012 Denise W. Carlson, ITL Program, College of Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder [used with permission]

3. Environmental Problem: Air Pollution
Air pollution from factory and energy industries.
Denver’s “brown cloud” from vehicle and industry emissions.
Smokestack image source: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health
Denver image source: 1998 National Renewable Energy Laboratory, US Department of Energy and at NREL’s Photographic Information eXchange

4. Environmental Problem: Litter
Non-biodegradable trash and debris collect on our nation’s beaches and in the oceans.
Image source: US Environmental Protection Agency and

5. In Pingus, your Penguins will look for environmental problems, guided by your instructions
Pingus is a computer game in which you give directions to the penguins you oversee to safely get them from the start of a level to the end of a level as they look for environmental problems.
Image source: Ingo Ruhnke [GNU general public license]

6. Activity Steps Complete the first three levels of Pingus' story.
Pick either the second or third level.
Write instructions for all the steps to complete the level.
Have a fellow “environmental engineer” use your instructions exactly, making suggestions for improvement.
Revise, based on suggestions for improvement.
Show your revised instructions to the teacher to get more feedback.
Make a final draft of your instructions to hand in for grading.
Leave this slide on the screen while students work.
Image source: Ingo Ruhnke [GNU general public license]

7. How to Write Good Pingus Instructions
First, always tell the reader to click Play.
List every step that needs to be done.
Be descriptive and very clear:
Bad example:
Click on the penguin
Good example:
Click on the penguin once it reaches the digging sign to make it dig through the stone into the cavern beneath.
For the final step, in some way, tell the reader that s/he is done.