Do you know of any good games that can teach the scientific method? Ideally the game would have an interesting and instructive subject matter suited to a wide age range.

Have you played any such game?

Thanks.

I don't know any games, but the group They Might Be Giants has a great CD and DVD combination called "Here Comes Science" that teaches a broad range of science information and is fun to listen to...

Here Comes Science

They also have "Here Come the ABCs" and "Here Comes the 123s."

Cheers

Dave

If you're talking about deductive reasoning, the board games "Mastermind" and the various renditions of "Clue" (classic, regular, Harry Potter, Family Guy, etc.) are good for that.

http://www.amazon.com/Pressman-Toy-3018-...3215&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Parker-Brothers-40...3300&sr=1-1

I don't know of any games that will teach research, hypothesis, tests, analysis, and conclusions.

I've never heard of a gamethat helps teach the scientific method. Actually, the only self-contained exercise that I can recall ever doing in school that encapsulates the whole process of the scientific method is when we did science fair projects. Besides that, everything else is just focusing on a facet of the overall process.

Great question - I'll ask around

Teacher

The first thing that comes to my mind is observation games. They could include:

-spot the difference in the pictures
-Kim's Game (a Scout game where you lay out a tray of small objects, let the players observe for a minute, and then cover up the tray. The players have to try to name/wirte down as many of the objects as they can remember
-optical illusion pictures (i.e. The faces/vase picture, pictures made up of other smaller pictures)
-search and find games (hide objects and have the players find them, or use a picture with pictures of ojects within it)

Love Clue and Mastermind! Battleship? Connect 4?

There are probably legitimate reasons to consider a variety of approaches to be scientific methods, given the differences in sciences, but I was thinking primarily of the so-called hard sciences. I belive a fair rendition of the scientific method for hard science would be:

1. Observation / evidence gathering.
2. Creating or chosing plausible hypotheses as to what has been observed and gathered.
3. Designing experiments to support or eliminate hypotheses.
4. Carrying out the experiments.
5. Evaluating the experimental results, including statistical analyses of multiple test runs, to determine which hypotheses the observations and evidence best support.

That would be asking a lot from a game, but surely someone has at least taken a shot at it.

All of the above I learned as kid from from every day life/exploration/experimenting and did not need a specific game to figure it out. Although times and technology have changed, I can also say that my kids have learned the same way...

Based on all the pseudoscience and gullible exclamations out there, I would say that puts you and your kids firmly in the minority!

Especially for areas where the theories and evidence are new to you, it would be great to have a meanigful introduction in game form.

This puts you ahead of me. Still, as a child, I would go to the Museum of Nature & Science, Dallas Nature Center, Duncanville Public Library and observe the rock formations at Ten Mile Creek.

Jeanette Isabelle

Jeanette:

Life and growing up is one big methodological and scientific experiment. Think about all you have evaluated, tried, failed, learned from etc. You cannot be taught all of these methods from a fabricated game that someone wants to design.

Thats the point I was making in my first post...

This is true. Still, a game would not hurt. That said, I believe a kid could learn more from an educational toy than what they would from a game.


I stand corrected. A kid could learn as much from an educational game as they would from an educational toy.

Jeanette Isabelle

Board games recommendations from the self-proclaimed big brains (MENSA)

http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Mensa_Select#

Orienteering?


Jerry (a science teacher)

Simply have them do science and seek rational answers to questions. The scientific method can be applied at any level and kids are often natural scientists. As in, "Dad told me never to play with fire or I will get a licking. Now that is a testable hypothesis...."

I appreciate your thoughts.



One of the point's is to teach how to "do science" and how to recognize a "rational answer." There are hard-won and specific techniques that may seem counterintuitive and, at the least, are not often witnessed in everyday life.



Agreed. And kids love games, which makes a scientific-method-teaching game or dozen seem a good idea.



You learned the "testable hypothesis" concept somewhere! I doubt the concept, or how to implement it, is understood by most. Neither the concept or implementation are simple; they remain the most often debated parts of science in every field.

+1!

We did an activity at a Beaveree last weekend that was a bit of a treasure hunt. We had the kids walk so many paces North into the forest to a specific tree. On each tree was a poster with a picture, number and a letter.

Kind of like this:

# L
Picture


Once they found the tree, they had a sheet to write their findings on. A miniature version of each number and picture was on the sheet they were given, with a blank line above it. They had to write the letter onto the corresponding blank line.

Kind of like this:

___________
Picture
Letter


Once they had all the letters figured out, they had to unscramble the letters to figure out the words. Together, the words told them where the treasure was.

Because of their age, we just let them run from tree to tree to find the posters. You could easily modify this game to include compass navigation to each tree along the way.

There is a sort of riddle game, wherein the person who knows the riddle describes a scene (observation). The other players then ask yes-or-no questions and try to work out what happened based on the answers (i.e. they form hypotheses of what may have happened to result in the initial observation, then ask questions to test those hypotheses).

Some examples of initial observations:

"A man is found naked and dead in the middle of a bare field. He is holding a straw in his hand." (People usually start with questions such as "Was he bleeding?" "Were any bones broken?" "Was there any mud on the ground?" etc.)

"John and Marsha are found dead on the floor in a puddle of water." ("Are any weapons nearby?" "Were John and Marsha in love?" etc.)

A man walks into a restaurant, orders, takes one bite of his selection, then shoots himself. ("Is what he ordered relevant to his suicide?" "Was his food poisoned?" etc.)

Is this something commercially available?

While not specific to understanding the scientific method, there are games out there that provide the basis for critical thinking. A number of years ago I used to be a facilitator for Project Wild. Project Wild was developed in part to address the needs for educational programs to incorporate into their curriculum, environmental education. Project Wild sought to provide students, through games/activities an opportunity to explore a variety of critical thinking approaches to understanding environmental principals.

One game I almost always presented was “Oh Deer”. It examines available resources in population dynamics.

Oh Deer

The purpose is not to teach what to think about a particular subject, but obtain and apply critical thinking skills.

Pete

I noticed our local technical school is offering a summer camp with a Mythbusters styled theme. This would seem to be great way to teach the scientific method in a fun way. The description for the camp reads like this:

"You may have heard the warning to keep your toothbrush far away from the toilet because nasty germs could get sprayed in the air land right smack onto your oral hygenic friend. Yuck! Is that really true? Could that really happen? Campers will put myths like this one to the test using scientific inquiry and find out just how real they are. (Err, in the meantime, why don't you move that toothbrush, just to be on the safe side?)"

Also, regarding critical thinking, I've heard good things about the The Fallacy Detective, but I have no personal experience with the product. The description says it also includes "The Fallacy Detective Game."

The Fallacy Detective looks interesting, thanks.

One curiosity is the original deals with 38 fallacies, while according to the comments, a new version for Christian teaching deals with only 36.

As a kid I loved the game Stop Thief!. Similar to Clue, one had to use deductive reasoning to find the theif.

As for the full application of the scientific method, I can't think of any. I'll put the question to my wife, she might have come across something amoung homeschooling stuff.

-Blast

It looks like the 36 lesson title is most likely an earlier edition of the current 38 lesson title. The comments you refer to were from 2008 and the current edition is listed as the "2009 edition" on their product page. Amazon lists the 36 lesson edition as being published in 2003.

Based on this article from the MIT Tech, it would seem that the book was written by and marketed primarily to Christians but the content is largely free of any doctrinal content (the article does mention one exception).

Nice post, Denis.

Science camp! Great idea Dennis! I've seen a few of them advertised in our area too. Since DS is gaining a real enthusiasm for science, I 'll think I'll look into it. Thanks!~

I skimmed threw all the comments so hopefully no one else mentioned this.

Zork Grand Inquisitor.


I Played this game at a young age and fell in love with it. I have never found another point and click puzzle game that was so entertaining and far out there at zork G.I. The Puzzles are so different then any other game I have ever played.

So you'd need a game that has...

a) several possible strategies for winning/getting ahead.
b) limited random element, so the experiments are repeatable (to a degree at least).
c) logical or at least predictable outcomes from events during the game.
d) identical starting position for the experiments to be repeatable.
e) simple enough rules.
f) probably a few more points that escape me at the moment.

Anything short of 100 games of chess against same opponent, I can't think of any one game that does it all...

EDIT: Admittedly, I recognised four games from the mensa-list, so I might just be ignorant of any such game.

-jh

Search "logic games"

Probability theory is a good place to start with learning the scientific method. You can start simple - coin tossing and predicting the outcome and then move on to more complex cases, like rolling a dice or rolling multiple dice. Then on to advanced probability - cards make a good tool for this. In all cases you can quickly develop and test a theory after some simple observations.

Of course to keep all this science interesting you may need to focus on some good games using these tools. I suggest backgammon and eventually craps as good applications of probability theory as applied to dice. Blackjack and Poker are great at putting just the right polish on your understanding of the scientific method as applied to cards though some people seem to prefer canasta or rummy. The nice thing about these particular tools and games is the wonderful opportunity for hands on learning with real world application.

- Eric

I'm a fairly big game geek and I can't think of any game involving the scientific method. A few of the games that might come close or would at least be interesting to some people on this thread:

Mindtrap - plays a bit like Trivial Pursuit, but with braintwisters, lateral thinking and logic puzzles on the cards. Things like "how many months have 28 days" (all of them) or "The maker doesn't want it, the buyer doesn't use it, and the user doesn't see it. What is it?" (a coffin).

Clue: The Great Museum Caper - almost completely unrelated to Clue. One player is a thief that moves secretly around the game board and the other players try to catch him. (Unfortunately I see it's out of print and priced sky-high on Amazon.)

Settlers of Catan - several educational positives: probability lessons, trading with other players, more than one way to win.

Outdoor Survival - an old Avalon Hill game. Not that great of a game, but interesting just because of the topic.

Blink / Set - two pattern-matching card games.

I'm sure it's not exactly what you had in mind, but it occurred to me that many of the more strategy-based games for various popular video game systems implement some to most of these steps. One of my favorites for the playstation 2 is a turn based strategy war game called Dai Senryaku VII Exceed. The observation phase comes when you check out the map and the opposing force(s). You then create a hypothesis on how/what you will do to defeat them. You design your experiment by deciding what units you need on the field to carry out your plan to defeat the enemy(ies). Of course the fun part is carrying out the experiment (you play the game). If you win, your plan was successful. If you lose or just had a difficult time, you can reevaluate, see what went wrong, and change your strategy/units and try again. A few other games fit into this category, such as Final Fantasy VII and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. In these, you have to plan ahead as to what equipment you think you'll need, say to get through a certain area or defeat a certain enemy, then try it out. If it doesn't work, you reevaluate and try it again.