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