SBIR Phase I: Inquiry-Based, Ecology-Themed Game for Elementary School Students

提出的创新是为小学教师和学生开发一款视频游戏，使用基于探究的学习来展示生态系统中的相互依存关系。需要高质量的科学教学工具，因为美国的科学教育在发达国家中排名第17(PISA，2009)，这可能部分是由于缺乏科学教师培训(Roehrig等人)。2011年)。拟议的电子游戏将允许教师在不同的科学背景下创建具有不同地理特征的可定制的微生境(即岛屿)。玩家将被提示使用观察和实验来确定将在他们的虚拟世界中茁壮成长的有机体的最佳组合。这款游戏将鼓励玩家在互动的虚拟环境中提问、实验、分析和解决问题。这个项目的目的是在教授儿童科学推理的同时提高他们天生的好奇心，并在他们身上培养解决多变量现实世界问题所需的分析过程和思维技能。这些技能的发展最终将促进人们对科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)专业的兴趣。更广泛的商业影响是，通过填补目前空白的利基市场：面向小学生的生态主题视频游戏，提高了学生对STEM专业的兴趣。在一个技术竞争激烈的世界里，美国的教育系统必须积极地专注于教我们最小的孩子理解和使用科学思维。当地的老师、孩子和家长将与我们的程序员合作，在游戏设计中有重要的投入。考虑到基础教育工作者在教授科学时所面临的困难是至关重要的，因为教师将带头在课堂上向他们的学生展示这个游戏。此外，该视频游戏将为可能无法进入户外区域的学校(例如，在STEM专业招收不成比例的少数族裔学生的城市学校)提供一种方式，以进行动手实验，并在虚拟环境中设计和测试生态实验。目前，市场上还没有一款视频游戏可以在教授小学生生态概念的同时，训练他们像科学家一样思考。缺乏商业竞争，再加上学校需要额外的科学资源，这表明这款视频游戏存在商业市场机会。

The innovation proposed is to develop a video game for elementary school teachers and students using inquiry-based learning to demonstrate interdependencies in ecological systems. High-quality science teaching tools are needed because the US is ranked 17th in science education among developed nations (PISA 2009), which may be in part due to lack of teacher training in science (Roehrig et al. 2011). The proposed video game will allow teachers, regardless of science background, to create customizable microhabitats (i.e., islands) with different geographical features. Players will be prompted to use observation and experimentation to determine the optimal combinations of organisms that will thrive in their virtual world. The game will encourage players to ask questions, experiment, analyze, and solve problems in an interactive virtual environment. The aim of this project is to enhance children's natural curiosity while teaching them scientific reasoning, and to develop in them analytical process and thinking skills necessary for solving multiple-variable real-world problems. The development of these skills will ultimately promote interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions. The broader/commercial impact is increasing student interest in STEM professions by filling a market niche that is currently empty: ecology-themed video games for elementary school students. In a technically competitive world, U.S. educational systems must aggressively focus on teaching our youngest to understand and use scientific thinking. Local teachers, children, and parents will work with our programmers to have significant input into the game design. It is crucial to consider the difficulties that elementary educators face when teaching science, since teachers will take the lead in presenting this game to their students in the classroom. Furthermore, the video game will offer a way for schools that may not have ready access to outdoor areas (e.g., urban schools who enroll a disproportionately large number of minority students underrepresented in STEM professions) to conduct hands-on experimentation and to design and test ecological experiments in a virtual environment. There are currently no video games on the market that teach elementary school students ecological concepts while training them to think like a scientist. This lack of commercial competition, paired with a need for additional science resources in schools, indicates a commercial market opportunity for this video game.