Playing with Politics and Government

The political season is in full bloom and wherever you live and whatever your political perspective, you can't escape the primary stages of the presidential election process. And, as we all know, things are only going to get more interesting and intense as we move towards the November elections. 

As noted in a recent NY Times article, former United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is a major force behind a video game that brings the election process to life for students, called Win the White House, The game is one of several created by iCivics, a nonprofit organization Justice O'Connor founded in 2009, after she retired from the Supreme Court in 2006. Other games (there are 19, each with lesson plans) include "Do I Have a Right?" and "Bill of Rights."  

The games are all aligned with the Common Core Standards and designed to be played by students of varying ages. In addition to the accompanying lesson plans, each of the games offers DBQs (document based questions), classroom activities, and tools to teach such other skills as formulating an argument. All of the iCivics games and tools are free, although some require registration.

Justice O'Connor is not the only "Supreme" involved in iCivics. Through her encouragement, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has joined the iCivics Board of Directors and the organization has received an award from the MacArthur Foundation, as well as support from numerous leading foundations. 

 

Exploring Real Life with Minecraft

If you spend any time around young people, you've likely heard plenty about Minecraft, the video game that kids can't seem to get enough of. Although too much screen time is to be avoided, many parents don't mind Minecraft because it rewards creativity and critical thinking. Ty Hollett, a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, is working on a project that makes Minecraft even more virtuous. 

Hollett has created a "makerspace" called Studio NPL at the downtown Nashville Public Library. Using concepts from Minecraft, he is encouraging young people to re-envision a housing community in East Nashville. Hollett's clever program got us thinking about ways to take advantage of kids' obsession with Minecraft. We love the idea of using Minecraft to explore urban planning, but why stop there? Themes in the game can serve as a wonderful platform for introducing and exploring all kinds of other real-world topics. Creative teachers and parents will no doubt have plenty of their own ideas; here are a few of ours:

Cartography – In adventure mode, players can explore "maps" created by other players. Navigating around the map and exploring the virtual world is tremendous fun for young people. Kids will likely be more interested in drawing a map of their own Minecraft world than in looking at a map of Spain. Encourage them to draw lines of latitude and longitude and a compass rose to learn about coordinates and cardinal directions in a format that is personally meaningful to them. The geography of the real world will make much more sense in history class.

Architecture – Players are able to build anything they can imagine, so why not challenge them to re-create some famous structures? This is the perfect opportunity to discuss international landmarks. You can even get into physics by discussing how certain shapes, like the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, lend themselves well to distributing force.

Internet Research – What better way to develop web literacy than purpose-driven inquiry? Minecraft doesn't come with instructions, so players have to figure things out in one of two ways: 1) trial and error, or 2) Internet research. The uninitiated would be stunned by the number of instructional videos and articles on the web. Because finding tricks to help them succeed feels relevant, kids will experiment with search terms until they become masters at navigating the wealth of information online. And many who resist reading a novel will pore through hundreds of words to glean information that feels critically important.

Geology --  As the name implies, mining is important in Minecraft. Players must create pickaxes, first out of wood--which is the only available material, initially--to mine minerals in order to build things. Some kids may be surprised to learn the realistic information about minerals and their properties that is built into Minecraft. Just as on Earth, the most common element in Minecraft is iron, and one can mine iron ore in order to smelt it and turn it into a stronger pickaxe. (Yes, Minecraft covers smelting.) It gets better: Pickaxes made of different materials behave the way they would in the real world. A gold pickaxe gives a player bragging rights but doesn't do a great job of mining hard minerals because it is too malleable. A diamond pickaxe, on the other hand, can mine even the toughest minerals, like obsidian.

Logic Games and Brain Teasers to Sharpen Higher Thinking Skills

Practice is essential to honing any skill. Whether you want to juggle a soccer ball, master French, or solve algebraic equations with lightning speed, you've got to put in the time first. Research has long demonstrated that this principle holds true for higher thinking skills, too. Solving problems, deriving and applying rules, recognizing concepts, and using reason and logic are just some of the aspects of higher thinking, so it’s easy to see how those components are useful in school. People who practice using logic and problem solving skills are often better at thinking their way through problems more efficiently and flexibly. And games can be a great way to practice.
 

Here are some fun sites that provide opportunities for you, or young people in your life, to practice using logic to solve puzzles and brain teasers. (All games are free, unless specified.) Have fun!


The Set Game  – grade 4 and up

In this challenging game, players must group images on digital cards together to form a set based on concepts like the shapes, number of shapes, and features of shapes. This is a great exercise for concept-building, and the website provides a different challenge each day. Want more? The Set Game is also available through several apps and other websites, and the original card game version can be purchased from toy stores as well.

Traffic Jam  – grade 1 and up

This classic is now available online! Traffic Jam gives young minds a workout by challenging them to plan several steps ahead as they work to free the red car from a traffic jam. Cars on a grid block the red car’s path out of the jam, and users can only move the cars forward or backward to create a path. It will take several well-planned moves to do it! The site above shows the minimum number of moves required for solving the puzzle, so if kids figure it out in more moves than specified, ask them to try again with fewer moves. ThinkFun makes a concrete version of the game, for those looking for a more tactile experience.

Samorost  – grade 3 and up

Samorost is a delight. Players must help our hero Gnome navigate his way through a deliciously whimsical world to save his planet from an asteroid by solving a series of puzzles. Part of the puzzle, however, is figuring out what the puzzles are. We won’t give away too much, but rest assured that your kids (and probably you, too) will love clicking their way through this game to try to unravel its mysteries. Solved it? Check out Samorost 2, Machinarium, or some of Amanita Design’s other games. Although Samorost is free, some of Amanita’s other offerings require a fee.

One Hundred Doors – (age depends – see below)

Available for iDevices and Android through Google Play (search “100 Doors”), this game is downright addictive. The concept is simple: players must figure out how to open the door in front of them using clues they see around them. The reward for opening a door? Another door, which is slightly harder open. Sometimes players can find keys by knocking over objects with the swipe of a finger. Sometimes a code, hidden somewhere in the room, must be entered into the keypad. Sometimes ordinary objects will, upon closer examination, be arranged in a pattern that is critical to solving the riddle. The bottom line is that you should be ready for anything with 100 Doors! The first few doors don’t take much brainpower to conquer, but the puzzles get harder and harder as the game progresses. Younger kids will be able to pass the first few levels easily but may become frustrated with the later levels, so playing this game with a parent who can provide clues or making it a teamwork exercise with a friend could make it more enjoyable for everyone. Be warned, though: the later levels are bound to challenge even brainy adults! (Really stuck? You can find videos explaining how to solve each level on YouTube; simply type in the name of the game and the specific level.)

photo credit: flickr

Video Games and Learning

Parents who have been concerned about the impact of video gaming on their children  have new scientific evidence to support what many of them have noted from their own observations: children who own and use video game systems perform more poorly in certain school tasks than those who do not own such systems.

A new study, done as a randomized trial, the "gold standard" in research, appears in the journal Psychological Science (not available for free online) and summarized in an article by Ed Yong, which appears in a newsblast from the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society. The researchers, Robert Weis and colleagues from Denison University, recruited 64 boys, ages 6-9, who did not already own a video game system. They gave half the boys a Playstation 2 and three "all ages" games. The other boys did not get a game system. Parents were told the game systems were an incentive for participating in a study of development, not that it was gaming itself that was being studied.

After four months there were significant differences in reading, writing and spelling skills between the two groups of boys, differences which were also noted by their teachers. Interestingly, the differences did not show up in math. After looking more closely, the researchers determined that it was not gameplaying itself that diminished academic skills, but rather the fact that the students with their own game systems spent significantly more time playing than children who did not have their own systems and only played occasionally at the home of a friend. It was the time the students did not spend on outside academic tasks, like reading, that seemed to be the reason for the difference between the two groups.

Clearly, there are more questions to be answered. But by moving beyond earlier studies which looked only at the correlation between academics and gaming, and using the more rigorous format of a randomized trial, this new research can help parents make better informed decisions about whether and how to allow their children access to video games.

Photo Credit: Sean Dreilinger/Flickr