Prepare for Earth Hour 2011 With iPhone App

The World Wildlife Fund’s annual Earth Hour awareness campaign now has an app of its own.

This iPhone offering will help ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things with simple tasks that take the Earth Hour idea beyond a once-a-year activity.

Created by the WWF with help from the Leo Burnett Group, the app “is all about taking Earth Hour a step further by encouraging people to do things to help the planet every day, not just for that one hour,” said a Burnett rep.

To that point, the app is called 60+ [iTunes link] and is available for download now.

The app works a bit like a location-based service in that it has to-dos and checkins. But for this mobile application, you’ll check in positive actions you’ve done from a list provided by the app; for example, you might use more natural lighting, change your air conditioning settings or install a water-saving showerhead.

As you check in more actions, you’ll earn achievements, which are shareable across larger social networks, as well.

In addition to extending Earth Hour beyond its given 60-minute time period, the app aims to expand the geographic reach of Earth Hour. To that end, the WWF and Burnett will be tracking individual and global checkins and achievements within the app to gauge participation and impact around the world.

Soon, the app should have Game Center support to boost friendly competition among its users.

The Burnett Group rep also told us that the design’s interface has a unique, hand-drawn feel — because all the design elements were actually drawn from hand.

“The entire design of the app is also an act of going beyond the hour, as we created the entire interface out of discarded cardboard boxes and paper,” he noted.

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