World Oceans Day Pledge

Yesterday was World Oceans Day, an effort by conservationists to focus global attention on improving our oceans.  Since one of our major focuses this year has been my son's environmental group, Healing Oceans Together, this is a cause that is close to our hearts.

The group is currently concentrating on two projects:  continuing to grow the community-based Craft Coral Reef, and developing a card game to teach people about the coral reefs and to encourage to take actions in their lives that will benefit the coral.

So a couple of H2O members got together to post a photography of their pledge on behalf of World Oceans Day:

So while we are still in fundraising mode, the students remain positive and committed enough to the project to make a public pledge.  We know we will figure out a way to get the money we need to make this project happen!

For more information about the Cards, Coral & Kids campaign, visit our campaign website.

Turning Coral Conservation into Child's Play

I haven't posted in over a week, which I think is the longest I've ever gone since I've started this blog without posting.  I wish I could say it was due to Screen Free Week and my virtuous decision to eschew all things electronic, but it wasn't.  It is because I've been so busy with the Cards, Coral & Kids campaign for my son's environmental awareness group, Healing Oceans Together (H2O).

The idea behind this project, which is to create a Pokemon-like card game that would teach people about coral reef life and ecosystems and actions they can take to help the corals survive, is explained here and here, so I won't go into that again in my blog.  What I wanted to talk about here is some of the thinking behind the project.

You know, young teens are interesting creatures.  They are old enough to realize some of the problems with the world, and most are hopeful and confident about being part of the solution.  They tend to be really into Earth Day and recycling, Save the Planet, Stop Global Warming, Protect the Rain Forests, and the like.

And yet, on a daily basis, we are still telling them "Shut the Refridgerator Door!"  "Turn Off the Lights when You Leave the Room!"  "Don't Leave the Computer Running All Night!" or the frustrated but perhaps dangerous question of "Why Does it Take You 30 Minutes of Running Water to Take a Shower?"

Maybe it's different at your house.  But for many of us, our children's grand rhetoric for saving the planet doesn't match up with their everyday life habits.  Of course, that's really true for most of us adults as well...

In H2O, the students have been studying ocean science and math since September.  We decided to hone in on coral conservation because coral reefs are really the marine equivalent of rain forests.  Although coral reefs only make up about 0.1% of the oceans, they are home to approximately 25% of all marine life!  Also, corals take a long time to grow, so our damage to reefs that may be hundreds or thousands of years old can not be replaced within many of our human generations.

But what to do that would make a difference?  There are already tons of books and videos and ads and educational resources on this issue, but people continue doing what they've always done.  As parents, we've trying nagging, threatening, bribing, begging, and everything short of bloodshed, and yet...we, too, are largely ineffectual.  So we needed to come up with something else, something new.

And then we had a brainstorm.  Instead of using guilt and threats and dire warnings of environmental catastrophes, what if we made saving the coral reefs fun?  What if we made it....into a game?

In approaching it this way, we were influenced by the work of Jane McGonigal, whose work is summarized in a video I included in an earlier post.  Her video on that page, a TED talk on how "Gaming Can Make a Better World," is a synopsis of her wonderful book, Reality Is Broken:  Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.  In short, she argues that time people spend on video games actually helps them develop positive characteristics (such as working hard, cooperation, and optomism), and explores how to structure games so that we can channel all the time people spend playing games into social activism games that will help solve Earth's real-world problems.  It is a fascinating and inspiring book, and I recommend it highly.

So, in short, that is what we are trying to do with this game.  First, the game will teach students (and adults as well) the real science behind food chains and interlocking ecosystems in the coral reefs.  We think this is important because we think if people knew more about all these fascinating creatures, they would love them, and we take care of the things we love (for more of our philosophy on that, read the Family Educators Commons article that Maria Droujkova and I co-wrote on the Shareable website).  But secondly, we will build into the games a way for them to earn (or lose) points based on their actions in real life.  You insist that I drive you to the library?  You lose 5 points.  You walk or ride your bike there yourself?  You gain 5 points.  You stand there with the refridgerator open as you drink your water/milk/juice?  You lose 3 points.  You close the door and drink it at the table?  Well, I don't know that we'll give you points for that, since that should be normal behavior, but at least you won't lose points.  You keep your showers under 10 minutes?  You get 2 points.  You keep your showers under 5 minutes?  You get 5 points.

You get the idea.

Anyway, we think this game has the potential to give kids incentives for to change those behaviors that we parents have been nagging them about for years, but to no avail.  If we all make those small changes, maybe they won't completely solve the problem, but they will make things better.  And making things better is something that can make us all feel good.

If you would like to be a part of helping to make this game happen, then please visit our Cards, Coral & Kids campaign.  For a small donation, you could get a deck of the cards before they are released to the public, participate in our pilot trials and research project, or even give input into the cards themselves!  Also, please spread the word about this idea to all your social media networks, email loops, and friends and family.  Getting the funding we need to develop the game requires reaching lots of people, so anything you can do to help is greatly appreciated!

Curriculum Resource: Live Preservers Game Teaches Evolutionary Biology

Here is a great game I found that is perfect for the middle school biology classroom.  It is called Life Preservers, and it was developed by the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab at Michigan State University.  The game was developed to teach evolutionary biology concepts, but it does it with a twist.  In the game, aliens are going to ship two invasive species to colonize on Earth for their own purposes, but you only have the ability to eliminate one of them before they start reproducing.  The point of the game is to figure out which one will cause the least damage if it is allowed to stay, based on how it will effect the evolutionary development of this planet's ecosystem.

So you begin by learning something about the planet's historical evolution.  The game has two parts; one is about the time of the dinosaurs, while the other is the rise of mammals, including humans.  In each part, you learn about some of the species of those times that became extinct, and some that have continued to develop into modern times.  Eventually, the characteristics of the two potential alien species are revealed, and you get to choose which one to eliminate and which one to allow to land and to see what changes it brings to life on Earth.

So it is quite an interesting and non-obvious challenge (because both will have some kinds of impacts).  There is a lot of good content, and it is not set up as a win/lose scenario.  Also, playing both parts of the game takes 45 minutes, so it can be done within a typical class period (if you are doing it in an actual classroom scenario).

For more information on the game, visit the teachers website.  But if you want to just jump right in and start saving the planet from alien invasive species, try your hand at Life Preservers.

Curriculum Resource: WolfQuest, a North Carolina Addendum

Just a couple of days ago I wrote a post about the free online wildlife simulation game, WolfQuest.  In this game, you create a virtual wolf persona, and attempt to survive, join a pack, find a mate, create a den, and raise your young in the wilds of Yellowstone Park.  It is a great way for students to learn about wolf ecology.

However, there was a great article in this weekend's News and Observer paper that talked about the re-admission of red wolves in Eastern North Carolina.  This article is an example of a way to extend the learning from the online game by researching wolves in your local environment and the impact they have in the web of life.

So, for instance, in the game the wolves hunt elks and try to escape from grizzly bears.  But are there elks and grizzly bears in North Carolina?  Not outside the zoos or museum they aren't.  Those are not the prey or the predators that our local wolves need to deal with.  Nor, at least as far as I have been able to tell (and maybe we haven't played the game enough or haven't done well enough as wolves), has the game displayed what happens if your wolves get TOO good at eating other animals and producing too many young.

But this represents a great launching off point from the game.  After students have mastered the ability to survive as a wolf in Yellowstone, you can ask them how those results might differ if they were wolves in North Carolina (or whatever state or country you happen to be in).  In your local area, who benefits from the wolves?  Who is threatened by the wolves?  What could overpopulation of wolves in your state do?  This won't be found in the video game, but could inspire some interesting offline research, once students have identified with wolves through their game play.

I'm not going to answer that question for North Carolina because I want my son to investigate the issue himself (and he reads my blog).  But if people from other areas do this and find out what species win or lose when wolves are around, please add that information below in the comments.

Curriculum Resource: WolfQuest, a Wildlife Simulation Game

I know I've been writing about the arts a lot lately, which is the area that has been the focus of our summer.  However, we'll always doing other fun and interesting things as well.  My son pointed out that I hadn't written about something we've been doing for our science curriculum:  WolfQuest, an online game that teaches students about wolves.

WolfQuest, which was developed by the Minnesota Zoo and EduWeb, you learn about the lives of wolves by becoming one.  NO, I don't mean the trendy thing about becoming a werewolf; rather, the game is a 3D wildlife simulation where you play the role of a virtual wolf.  You set your own genetics--would you rather be stronger or faster?  would you rather be reddish or greyish?--then try to survive as a wolf in Yellowstone Park.

There are two formats for the game.  You can play the game by yourself on your own computer, where you must master such tasks as finding and hunting down food, attract a mate, find a den, and raise your cubs while protecting them from predators like coyotes and grizzly bears.  Or you can play the multi-player version online, where you and up to four other players can form a pack and work together to hunt and raise your families.  In the multi-player version, you can either hook up with other players in a public game, or you can establish a private game with people you know.  This makes WolfQuest a great game to introduce students to multi-player games if you are nervous about Internet security and such.

WolfQuest has a variety of educational materials available on the website, as well as an active online community where students can ask questions about the species from actual wolf biologists.  But the students I've seen play so far are mostly learning through the trial and error method of trying to keep their virtual wolf alive and reproducing successfully.  And the multi-player pack version can also teach them some valuable lessons about working as a team--a great skill to have whether you are a wolf or a human!

Oh, and I forgot to mention--the whole thing is FREE!  It's really well done, it conveys a lot of scientific content in a fun and engaging way, and the price is certainly right.

It certainly has been a big hit in our household.

Curriculum Resource: IMF International Economics Games

Perhaps it is all this focus on the debt ceiling debate, but our homeschool group has been abuzz about economics education discussions and resources lately.  But when I heard about these two online games by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), I knew I had to post them, seeing as I have not just one, but TWO people in my immediate family who have served as the US Executive Director to the IMF!

The IMF has an educational section on its website with curriculum guides for middle school and high school teachers, and some online games for middle school and high school students.  The first game for the middle schoolers is called Where in the World & What in the World is Money?  In this game, students use a time machine to visit cultures around the world at different times in Earth's history, and discover that the units of exchange have varied greatly over time and space.  The other game for this age group is Trading Around the World, which is a little more involved than the first one.  Students choose to play a role based on a trader from different continents across the world.  They your trader goes about trying to sell his/her goods at the best prices, while buying other things at the biggest bargains.  Sometimes the desired trades are blocked by trade barriers, which helps students understand why international organizations like the IMF exist to keep trade flowing.

If you have a high schooler, or an advanced middle schooler, you could also check out the Money Mania game.  It is a quiz on macroeconomics, set as a game show format.  You pick your character, who is competing against a typical uninformed high school student and a college economics major.  But it isn't easy!  In the beginning, I was getting trounced by the college econ major.  But then they asked some questions about policies that my father spent most of his early career working on....so shame on me if I didn't get those right!  Then, at the end, they asked four questions specifically about the IMF itself, all of which, fortunately, I got right (did I mention TWO of my family helped run the IMF?).  But even with those advantages, I ended up tying with the college student.  So I don't know how well most higher schoolers would do, let alone middle schoolers.

Still, these are fun ways to help explain why it might matter whether or not the US defaults on its international loans, and some other aspects of international economics.

Curriculum Resource: Body Systems Survivor

I ran across a creative idea for a human health class for middle schoolers--a curricular idea entitled Body Systems Survivor.  This program, which was created by a school in Long Island, NY, covers a typical human anatomy topic--the six body systems in the human body--by presenting it as a contest between the competing body systems a la reality TV competition Survivor (or that's what I assume, at least....I'm never actually seen the TV show).  Students work together in six competing teams, performing various challenges, and ultimately producing a multimedia work to argue why their body system is the most important system in the human body.

The Body Systems Survivor website is not a curriculum per se, but it demonstrates what the school did, and shares many components, resources, and student output.  So it can provide you with assistance if you would like to do something like this in a group setting.

Thinking Game: Mind Your Marbles

Here is the game I've spent too much time playing tonight:  Mind Your Marbles.  It's a deceptively simple game; you merely have to arrange five of the same colored marbles in a row, column, or diagonal line along a 9 square x 9 square grid to earn points.  They then disappear, but unlike many of these matching games, it does not make the other marbles around them "fall" or change position.

So it's not bad at first....but has your board gets filled up, it gets harder and harder to move around.  Plus, you can see the colors of the next set of marbles, but you don't know where they will be placed.  So just as you've plotted a strategy to get that fifth marble in the right place--BAM--the game inserts a wrong colored marble to block your plan.

So it combines forward planning with the element of luck.  It can be frustrating, but you can take as long as you like considering the possibilities, which I think enhances it as a thinking game.  It's a good level for a middle school range student.

Game for Developing Left Brain AND Right Brain

I am very interested in the learning theories around the dominance of different hemispheres of the brain--the whole "left brain/right brain" business.  Both according to the test we've taken and just observation in our everyday lives, my son and I are both right-brained--intuitive, global, diffuse (some might say "scattered") thinkers.  My husband, on the other hand, is left-brained--sequential, narrowly-focused, organized, one-thing-at-a-time, logical thinker.

Of course, as the theories always say, no one (at least, no one without a brain injury or something) works out of just one half of the brain.  We all can access both parts of the brains when we need to, but for most of us, it is easier or more natural to operate from one hemisphere or the other--leading up to apply the wrong hemisphere thinking to some tasks, just because that mode of thinking feels more natural to us.

However, I just came across a game to help us with that.  The computer-based game Twinoo, by Dawn of Play, is a fast-paced game that requires you to draw on both sides of your brain.  On the left side of the screen, a simple math problem flashes up, and you only have a few seconds to choose which of the three possible answers is the correct one.  

Pretty easy so far, isn't it?

Except at the same time, a color mixing problem flashes up on the right side, and you have to select the correct answer for that one as well.  This time, your "equation" is a square of one color (red, say) and another square of a different color (for example, blue).  You have to decide which of the three squares of color below the problem is the right solution (in this case, purple).

That doesn't sound too bad either.  The thing is, the color equations usually aren't that clear cut.  So, for example, you will get an aqua square and a light yellow square, and you have to figure out which of the three shades of green below is the most likely for that combination.

Plus, the time is ticking down on both of them at the same time.  You go back and forth, answering both questions, until you've missed three on one side or the other.  Then the game is over.

The best I've been able to do is 21 correct on both sides, for a total score of 42.  I am finding that I am getting better, though...at least sometimes.  And it isn't consistent for me about which side I mess up on--the left brain side or the right brain side.

I will also say I don't think this is the greatest test for right brain dominance.  While I am right brained, I am not primarily a visual learner.  I haven't tried it with my son yet, who is very visual, but I suspect he would be much better at it than I am.  Of course, he is pretty much better than I am at all video games... he has those quick reflexes, if nothing else.

Anyway, it's a fun game to play for a bit, and I think it might just help develop both sides of your brain.  At least, it couldn't hurt!

You can play the game online here, or get it for $0.99 for the iPod or iPad at the Apple App Store or for Android devices at the App Store on Amazon.

Lesson Plan: 19th Century Japanese Game (Kai Awase)

In our 19th Century World History coop, we always have student presentations, then five stations prepared by the adults:  timeline, maps, craft, game, and food (although, after typing that, I have to admit that the student preference is in exactly the opposite order).  This week we were studying later 19th century Asian history---basically, what happened once Admiral Perry and company broke the Asian barriers to dealing with the West.

My assignment was to do a game.  We are great fans of the book Heart of a Samurai, which I reviewed in a previous post, so I focused on Japan.  My research showed that the Japanese played many games similar to our American card games, but they didn't use the paper cards like we did until well after they had been exposed to them by Portuguese traders.  Rather, they used something that was prevalent in that island nation--they used shells.  But in that Japanese way of only using things of beauty, they painted their shells and made them into incredible art pieces.  These had been used for many centuries, but most of the example for which I could find photographs had been made during the 19th century, so they were still the rage at that time among the upper class Japanese.

I found that they played a game that was similar to our game of Concentration.  Entitled Kai Awase (which the web tells me is based on "kai" meaning "shell" and "awase" meaning "joining" or "matching"),  the point of this game is to find shells with the same picture inside.  The shells have been painted in a beautiful Japanese style, often using gold plate and other expensive paints, with the inside/concave side having a scene from Japanese literature, poetry, or nature scenes.  The shells are placed facing down, and players have to select the matching pair.  However, this was particularly difficult because a full set of traditional kai awase shells contained 360 pairs of shells, all contained in a box called a "kaioke."

Based on this information, I tried making my own set of WAY faux kai awase.  First, I bought some shells at Michaels (using my 40% discount coupon, of course).  I covered the outside with origami paper, which I used Sparkle Mod Podge to adfix to the the shell.   I know the Japanese scene was supposed to be inside the shell, but knowing the difficulties in adhering paper to shell, I was afraid I couldn't get exactly the same part of the origami paper to fit inside the shell, and thus might throw the students off in their match-seeking.  However, although not the way the real items are, the students found them quite beautiful, which was a lesson I was trying to teach them about the Japanese culture.

Kai Awase shell

On the inside, instead of a Japanese scene or a poem that I thought wouldn't be significant for our students, I stuck on pairs of kamons, or Japanese family crests.  I found a website with copyright-free kamon images, and selected some animals symbols that I thought the students would enjoy.  So the inside of the shells looked like this:

Butterfly Kamon on inside of Kai Awase shell 

While a full set contained 720 shells, I'm afraid my set only had 16.  However, that was sufficient to sustain the interest of our students, who played in groups of 3 or 4.  I did make my version of a kaioki by adding some origami paper to a wooden cigar box that I had:

Kaioke for Kai Awase game

Kai Awase game pieces in Kaioke box

So, just like Concentration, the shells are placed kamon-side down, and students took turns picking two shells.  If they matched, they got to keep them and score points from them.  If they didn't match, they put them back, kamon-side down, and the next player got a chance to play.

I think the game worked out very well.  While really nothing like their Japanese ancestors, my shells were shiny and pretty and the kids liked playing with them.  They learned about kamons, and part of the game was trying to figure out what animals were displayed in the graphic images.  At the end, I also gave them a chance to choose which of the images they would select for their family crest, and their choices were wide-ranging and somewhat revealing.

So if you are doing a unit on Japan, I recommend including something like this.  I think it works because it contains some familiar elements--I think every middle schooler has played a matching game like this--but also illustrates some important aspects of Japanese culture in a way that is more interesting to kids than the usual lecture.

Vanished Science Game: An Update

Another family is playing the Vanished science game with us.  Vanished, as I described in an earlier post, is an online game developed by MIT and the Smithsonian Institute to engage middle schoolers in science investigations.  In the game, we are being contacted by someone from the future, who is trying to figure out what caused an environmental disaster in their time/place that also wiped out all written records.  Participants get various clues and assignments online, but also are requested to go out into the world to collect data about climate, animal and plant species, and other environmental factors, and to upload them onto the site.  There are a number of collaborating museum and science centers that are also sponsoring events to assist with this project.

We are fortunate, because one of the museums that is participating is the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh.  Last week we got a communication from our mysterious online leader telling us to visit the museum on Saturday, April 23, to get more clues about the situation.  So our team went down there, not knowing what to expect.

It took us a bit, but eventually we found our game contact in Miss Liz, who is one of the educators who works at the museum.  She did not tell us anything directly, but pointed us in the direction of a few exhibits that she thought would help answer the cryptic message we had received about visiting the museum.  She was also wonderful about helping us think through what we had noticed from the exhibit, and answering questions about the science of that situation, if not about the game per se, which she said she didn't know any more about than we did.  After we had displayed enough understanding of the exhibit, she awarded us with individual patches from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, as well as what she called an "easter egg" (in the digital sense, even though ours happened to take place during the Easter weekend)--another clue about the mystery, this time in the form of a poem.

I will admit that I am very confused about what is going on with this game.  However, our students are interested and engaged, and they are enjoying it.  We can understand specific directions in the game, including the "missions" that include data collection and reporting, and events such as visiting the Museum on Saturday, and those activities are valuable, regardless of whether or not we ever figure out the overall mystery.   And I really appreciated the activity on Saturday because although we've probably visited that museum close to 100 times since it opened, and have walked by the exhibit involved most of those visits, I never took the time to piece together the story that part of the exhibit told until this Vanished visit on Saturday.  It just goes to show the depth of information in these science museums, and how even those of us who are members and frequent visitors still have lots to learn, no matter how many times we have been there.

So I would recommend this program to other middle schoolers who want to add a little science mystery to their end of the school year activities.  All the past activities are on the website, so you can still catch up if you are interested.  This is an interesting attempt to engage middle schoolers in science in a very non-traditional way.

Curriculum Resource: US Civil War Games

We are currently studying the US Civil War in our history studies, which is such an important but grim topic.  Fortunately, there are so many great resources to use in this area, especially since this year is the beginning of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.

There are lots of excellent media-heavy and/or interactive resources on the subject that you can find online. Here are some that are appropriate to the middle school age that we are using to cover some of this material is a less depressing way.

• The Smithsonian Institute has created a Civil War mystery game called Who Am I?  The game starts with a portion of a photograph of a real Civil War era person.  You are given a clue as to the person's role, and then choose which of the civil war items from the Smithsonian' collection might have been used by that person.  Once you have selected the right accessories, you get to see the entire photograph and learn the identity and role of that individual during the War
• The Smithsonian has also created some lesson plans and activities entitled Full Steam to Freedom, which deals with one slave's daring escape that gave the Union control of a Confederate ship.  While the lesson is really geared to an elementary school level, it is an awesome story, PLUS it contains a fun, physically-active game (which you can download here) to simulate the Union blockade and Confederate blockade-runners.
• There are quite a few online Civil War simulation games, but we're really not interested in doing that.  However, Big Fish Games has an online game named Hidden Treasure:  Civil War that seems more our speed.  It involves searching key Civil War locations to find hidden treasure and learn more about some people involved in a secret society to support the Union.  I'm not sure how educational it really is, but it may reinforce some Civil War facts in a more fun way.   You can play it for free for one hour, and then costs $9.99 to download the full version (or if you are new to Big Fish, you can buy it for $4.99, at least right now).  I think we'll try it an hour and see how it goes....
• If you would like some battle simulations, but don't want all the sensory input of those online games, I would recommend checking out Junior General.  On this site, you print out maps, grids, cards, etc., and use those paper items in fighting your battles.   I think that can make it a little easier for those of us with more sensitive students.
• They don't really count as games, because they are actually just animated quizzes, but there are several of the ever-popular Fling the Teacher modules available for the US Civil War.  Here is one that covers more of the entire time spectrum and is a little easier; this one focuses just on the Civil War and requires some more detailed knowledge.  There are also a couple of Walk the Plank quizzes (which are similar to Fling the Teacher); one is on the Civil War, while another is about Abraham Lincoln. 

As always, if there are any other great resources out there for this age group, please share them with us in the comments below.