Bringing Science to life through gaming
We believe that you need to understand your audience right from the start in order to find the right approach to learning. If you take the time at the beginning of a project to understand your audience's needs and experiences, you will lay solid foundations for a creative idea.
We have plenty of experience in developing resources for science education. We've found that this audience particularly benefits from a gaming approach. This is supported by research which compares the scientific process with the way people play games. For example, we have successfully created simulation games which help to support James P Gee's 'Probing principle'. This principle sees learning as a cycle of probing the world (doing something), reflecting on this action and forming a hypothesis, and then repeating or replaying the action to test the hypothesis.
An example of this is Science Supremo, where students take on the role of scientists working in modern pharmaceuticals and conduct a clinical trial on a drug under development. The game allows for real flexibility in teaching methods and brings together a range of blended activities - an effective approach when it comes to handling complex topics.
We have plenty of experience in developing resources for science education. We've found that this audience particularly benefits from a gaming approach. This is supported by research which compares the scientific process with the way people play games. For example, we have successfully created simulation games which help to support James P Gee's 'Probing principle'. This principle sees learning as a cycle of probing the world (doing something), reflecting on this action and forming a hypothesis, and then repeating or replaying the action to test the hypothesis.
An example of this is Science Supremo, where students take on the role of scientists working in modern pharmaceuticals and conduct a clinical trial on a drug under development. The game allows for real flexibility in teaching methods and brings together a range of blended activities - an effective approach when it comes to handling complex topics.
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Another simulation game we developed, for the Institute of Physics, is SimSpace. Here, players lead the effort to detect Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) which may be on a collision course with Earth. It's a game of increasing tension, as players are faced with evaluating many collision candidates, trying all the time to collect more data to establish the threat level more precisely. The game mirrors the processes that scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program use to track real NEOs.
Another approach is to create a truly immersive game-style interface as a 'hook' to get learners' attention. Our Navigator interface used a Space theme to draw learners into hard-to-teach topics in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Although not a game itself, the exploratory, game-style interface of Navigator is appealing and familiar to learners.
In a successful learning game, the content and motivation are both entirely intrinsic to the gameplay. The learning doesn't take anything away from the game and the game doesn't take anything away from the learning. This principle was at the heart of the self-funded research and proof of concept learning game DoomEd. Here we used the First Person Shooter (FPS) Half Life 2 'mod' engine to create a compelling game. DoomEd incorporates Science and History content with FPS gaming mechanisms. Working with the University of Wolverhampton, the game has given us some compelling feedback from mod gamers about developing successful learning games.
James P Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Another approach is to create a truly immersive game-style interface as a 'hook' to get learners' attention. Our Navigator interface used a Space theme to draw learners into hard-to-teach topics in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Although not a game itself, the exploratory, game-style interface of Navigator is appealing and familiar to learners.
In a successful learning game, the content and motivation are both entirely intrinsic to the gameplay. The learning doesn't take anything away from the game and the game doesn't take anything away from the learning. This principle was at the heart of the self-funded research and proof of concept learning game DoomEd. Here we used the First Person Shooter (FPS) Half Life 2 'mod' engine to create a compelling game. DoomEd incorporates Science and History content with FPS gaming mechanisms. Working with the University of Wolverhampton, the game has given us some compelling feedback from mod gamers about developing successful learning games.
James P Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
