Science Made Cool

Teens and Science Game Design at #scienceFTW

The American Museum of Natural History is in the midst of running their first afterschool science card game program for teenagers (called #scienceFTW), and I’ve been delightedly following Barry Joseph’s reports on how it’s going. It’s not just that I’m really proud that they adopted both Bone Wars and Parasites Unleashed for the program – I’m impressed that they’ve gone beyond simply giving kids some science games and passive instruction about “what they’re teaching.” Instead, the teens in the program are learning to analyze game mechanics and graphic design, and think about how those elements can be used to convey information about science.  That experience in critical thinking should be helpful when they start to develop their own deck building games later in the program – they plan to build a pterosaur deck for the ever-versatile Phylo, as well as an original game prototype about museum scientists. And judging from the photos, they’re having a great time. 

As Seen On TV!

HBO has just announced that they're doing a TV movie about the rivalry between fossil-hunters Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. You'll never guess what it's called.

Actually, you will: BONE WARS!

Wired has the story here. It's to be a comedy, featuring James Gandolfini (as, I'm guessing, Marsh) and Steve Carell (presumably as Cope).

I wonder if anybody at HBO is a fan of a certain card game? 

Surprise and Delight

Scientific American just put Parasites Unleashed at the top of their 2012 list of educational sciencey gifts, alongside the fascinating Little Bits kits and a cool flying bird model that I now WANT. WOO! 

Vanishing Game: Sign Up Now!

These days, if there’s a big video game, TV show, science-fiction movie, or kids’ spy novel on the horizon, there’s probably also an alternate-reality game promoting it. Alternate-reality games (or ARGs) typically start at a standard-enough (if a little weird) web site, but can spill into video, radio plays, email, telephone calls, and real life theater-like events. Players need to solve fiendishly difficult puzzles, and that encourages collaboration -- because the object isn’t actually to win the game, it’s to immerse yourself in the story that the game delivers. Let’s see...hard puzzles, highly-collaborative, need to learn things on the fly to play effectively... sounds like science to me. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to use an ARG for science education. 

Enter Vanished, a “curated” ARG developed by the Smithsonian and MIT’s Education Arcade. Billed as a “science mystery” aimed at 11 to 14 year old kids, the game promises an environmental disaster scenario with a science-fiction twist (the creators aren’t talking, but I’m betting on some variety of time travel here). Part of the draw will undoubtedly be the online games and the Facebook page, but players will also be asked to visit museums, collect data in the real world, and collaborate with other players as they advance through the 8-week-long storyline. The 'curated' aspect of the game means it's a bit less freeform than a standard ARG:  its online discussion forums will be moderated by adults, and it also includes a series of videoconferences with scientists from the Smithsonian to provide expert feedback on each series of puzzles. Sounds like it could be a blast.

The signup page went live today. The game starts April 4th, 2011.

 

Best Toys List

I love this. Jonathan Liu at Wired's GeekDad posted a list describing five classic traditional kids toys. The kinds of things kids have played with for a century or more. Your grandfather -- heck, your great-great grandfather probably played with these. 

His list? 

1. Stick

2. Box

3. String

4. Tube

5. Dirt

I do note the absence of that perennial classic, Rock. Maybe there were too many liability issues to include it.

Epic!

Today's Irregular Webcomic strip includes an absolutely epic rant by David Morgan-Mar about the evils of Monopoly. Not monopolies in business, but the game Monopoly. (Scroll down beneath the comic strip to behold its ranty majesty.)

What's particularly interesting is that all the things people dislike about Monopoly were conscious design decisions by its creator. Elizabeth Magie was a follower of the "single tax" movement founded by Henry George, and she designed "The Landlord's Game" to show the evils of private ownership of land -- following orthodox 19th century crackpot economic doctrine, the rich gradually acquire all the land and everyone else winds up penniless. In other words, it's supposed to be no fun. But millions (possibly billions) of people have played it for a century despite that.

They should all be playing Bone Wars instead.

Tails You Lose

The PhysOrg page, always a good source for the latest science-related press releases and news clips, has an interesting story about flipping coins. A trio of California researchers studied a large number of coin flips and determined that they are significantly non-random. Apparently the position of the coin before the toss is likely to be how it lands -- in other words, put the coin face-up on your thumb and there's a better than 50 percent chance of getting heads.

Long-time gamers (and probably most compulsive gamblers) know all about dice superstitions -- discarding dice when they give you "bad rolls," or keeping some dice unused to preserve the "good rolls" in them. My favorite was always the Stalinesque method of destroying dice that give bad rolls, in order to frighten the others into cooperating. These are somewhere between jokes and urban legendry -- except that they may not be, after all. Because if coin-flips are partly influenced by the starting conditions, it seems likely that dice rolls would be, as well. The greater number of possible results could make the effect less noticeable, but it would still be interesting to test.

Game Variants

Quick link on a rainy Sunday afternoon, to some games suitable for a rainy Sunday afternoon: Unscrabbleink and Grandma's Dominoes. (From the always interesting if somewhat Dylan-infested Maggie's Farm 'blog.)

Charles Darwin, Gentleman Farm

Even our local corn maze is celebrating Darwin’s 200th birthday (and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species). The iconic image of Darwin as an old man is flanked by five different species of Galapagos Island finches. According to the maze-makers at Warner Farm, there’s a lot more to the corn Darwin than looks:

 “Mazegoers will be challenged to identify and classify all living vertebrates and more. Because that's too easy they will also make their own close observations from images of biological curiosities found in the natural history collections of Amherst College and Greenfield Community College. And wait! There's more. They will need to naturally select the right trails in and out of Chuck's curly chin cilia.”

 Does this mean those beard wiggles are actually taxonomic branches? We’ll be checking out the phylogenetic fun this weekend. (We’ll let you know what we find.)

Origins Awards!

We didn't attend the annual Origins Gamefair this year, but we'd like to congratulate the winners of the 2009 Origins Awards:

In the Board Games category:  the alarmingly topical Pandemic, from Z-Man Games.
Children's, Family and Party Games category:  Say Anything, from North Star Games.
Historical Board Games:  Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear, from Academy Games.
Card Games:  Dominion, from Rio Grande Games.
Collectible Card Games:  Magic the Gathering: Shards of Alara 1, from Wizards of the Coast.
Fiction:  Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons Volume 2, from Devil's Due.
Nonfiction:  Tour de Lovecraft, from Atomic Overmind Press. (We own a copy of this, and recommend it highly.)
Miniatures Rules:  Classic Battletech: Tactical Operations, from Catalyst Game Labs.
Miniature Figures:  Star Wars: The Clone Wars Miniatures from Wizards of the Coast.
Historical Miniatures Rules:  tied between Field of Glory by Osprey Publishing, and Song of Drums and Shakos from Ganesha Games.
Historical Miniatures Rules Supplements:  Field of Glory: Rise of Rome, by Osprey Publishing.
Historical Miniature Figures:  15mm SS Panzerdivision "Das Reich" from Battlefront Games. (Sorry I can't find a link -- ask your local game store.)
Roleplaying Game:  Mouse Guard Role-Playing Game, from Archaia Studios.
Roleplaying Supplement:  Serenity Adventures, from Margaret Weis Productions. (Again, no link. Their site appears to be under attack by the Alliance.)
Game Accessories:  the D-Total Die from Gamescience (a 24-sided die!).

Congratulations to all the winners!