Flash Games played over the web:

MedMyst (about hunting down infectious diseases)

CSI:The Experience (just like the show, only you need to use your own brain!)

N-Squad You take on the role of a forensic scientist, solving crimes and investigating mysterious deaths.

Cellcraft is a real time strategy game in which you play the role of a cell trying to defeat a virus before they defeat you.  An excellent intro to cell biology for middle school.

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Downloads for PC and Mac:

The Curse of Brownbeard is Middle School game about pirates who need someone to figure out why they are getting sick… The Curse of Brownbeard.  Teaches experimental design.

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Available through My Game IQ (free download manager program that is PC only).

Immune Attack  (We are the top game on My Game IQ right now!  (9/28/2010)

Surge harnessing the power of video games to help students build a strong intuitive/tacit understanding of the physics involved.

Science Pirates: The Curse of Brownbeard helps students understand science processes to better change food safety behavior.

Re-Mission a third person shooter game about killing cancer cells.

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Games being built

Our collaborators at Clear Lab, where we are creating a battery of fun SCIENCE! games for middle school students!  Sign up to be a part of the development team!

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Other great sites:

Games for change has several game about the environment.

http://www.gamesforchange.org/play

NISE has some games about nanotechnology.  Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network.

http://www.nisenet.org/

Science Netlinks has many things for teaching… some are games, some are not…

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/resource_index.php

You can listen to the interview on NPR’s website. At the beginning of the interview, E. O. Wilson says that games are the future of education.  He says that gaming allows us to learn the way that we evolved to learn: by doing.

Who is Dr. Wilson?
From NPR site:
“Biologist E. O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, is a two-time Pulitzer-winning ant expert who helped develop theories of island biogeography, chemical ecology, and sociobiology. A leader in the modern environmental movement, Wilson has devoted his life to understanding how all forms of life are connected.”

Who is Will Wright?
Have you heard of the video game, The Sims? Well, before the Sims, Will Wright created a game SimAnt, in 1991. And according to his story on NPR this morning, Will used Dr. Wilson’s work on ants to create the scientifically accurate game SimAnt.

Here we have another argument in favor of teaching using games. Games allow us to Do Things. FAS has long held this position, and we are always happy to hear when others say so, too.

Well, this summer at McKinley Tech kids made games about gene regulation and inter neuronal signaling.  And the 3D Models they made are of Neurons, their Myelin sheath and of motor proteins carrying their cargo to the end of axons.  Not what you expected, is it?

Immune Attack can teach players about the molecular processes in the game.  But Immune Attack also inspires students to make their own game.

When I go over to McKinley Tech to talk to the students, I usually find fun looking images on their computer desktop backgrounds.  Popular singers, movies, and animation characters all show up on the computers… but this summer, on my third visit, I noticed that one of the desktop background images was changed to a really neat image taken with a scanning electron microscope of an artery full of red blood cells.

I went to McKinley 4 times this summer, once a week. I gave an initial 30 minute introduction into basic neurology (really basic, I mean I’m a biochemist, not a neuologist.)   I explained the was ion channels allow an electrical impulse to travel from the cell body to the end of the axon.  I explained how Myelin helps speed the electrical impulse.  I explained that receptors on the cell body receive chemical signals and certain combinations of those signals can cause the electrical impulse to start.   And I explained how some chemical signals cause a signal inside the cell that sends in turn another signal to alter gene expression.  Yes, that is right: I explained a LOT more molecular biology than High School sophomores ever learn.

But these kids we not learning biology, they were learning how to listen to a “subject matter expert” and how to design a video game based on what she says. While I talked their eyes darted about and I could see creative sparks all around. After my presentation I fielded questions for 30 more minutes.

Each time I returned to McKinley, I fielded another 20 minutes of intense questions from each of 4 groups of Game Maker students. The 3D modeling students, who are using Maya, asked many questions, too. But their models clearly showed that they had done a lot of excellent research independently.

Here is the story that eSchool News wrote about our four week project:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=60054

And finally, I need to thank Dr. Kevin Clark, professor in the George Mason University Instructional Technology, and Mr. Rick Kelsey STEM coordinator of McKinley Tech for inviting me to participate in their summer technology program.

If you are interested in having your students create video games about molecular biology, contact me.  Creating a learning is an objective that requires much learning and makes it fun at the same time.

The games and the moels that the McKinley students made will be posted soon!