Introduction: iCivics is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in United States democracy. iCivics does a nice job of integrating instruction through gameplay and promotes civic awareness through a variety of interactions. The games cover a wide range of topics such as, “Citizenship and Participation”, “The Constitution and Bill of Rights”, “Budgeting”, “Foreign Policy & National Defense”, “Separation of Powers”, and all three branches of government (Legislative, Executive and Judicial).

Site Overview:

iCivics is the brainchild of former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. It is intended to be a resource for students and teachers alike to promote civic participation. The site provides free games that can complement a student’s study in constitutional law, government, and debate. iCivics provides a platform that demonstrates to the player how our government operates, how to become an active civic participant, and how to construct arguments.

http://www.icivics.org/games

Overview: For students looking to perfect their utility of basic math skills while blasting robots, look no further than PEMDAS Blaster.  A well designed drill game, Blaster assumes prior knowledge and seeks to sharpen response time to basic math operations. Speed is paramount as evil robots come toward you with the intent to harm. The only way to destroy them is to solve each of their “access codes” (math problems). PEMDAS Blaster has a variety of engaging rewards that allow you to upgrade your weapons, throw grenades, and put up road blocks. The varied reward structure leads to prolonged engagement even for repetitive play.

Gameplay:

The objective of PEMDAS Blaster is simple: answer the math problems before the robots attack. For every correct answer submitted, you will shoot the corresponding robot, add to the progress bar, and receive “cash” in return. Incorrect answers will result in missing the shot, which wastes ammo. With only four lives before losing, it is paramount that each robot is destroyed quickly and efficiently. While there is no educational instruction, PEMDAS Blaster does promote strategies for students to solve more complicated problems without the use of a calculator. For example, by forcing students to think quickly and efficiently, a problem such as 19*15 is regarded as (20*15)-15.

Conclusion:

PEMDAS Blaster does a solid job of fulfilling its objective: creating an engaging and solid drill game that feels more like a first player shooter than it does a math drill.

http://www.mangahigh.com/en_us/games/bidmasblaster

*Review based on 1 hour of investigative gameplay

As part of its Science and Entertainment Exchange, the National Academy of Sciences announced that the GameDesk Institute is the winner of the 2011 Science, Entertainment and Education Grant. The grant will support GameDesk’s Science in Motion project, an “embodied” game for the iPad, Xbox Kinect, and SMALLab system covering middle and high school geoscience standards.

The project benefits from the support of multiple collaborators—the GameDesk Institute, LucasArts Entertainment, University of Southern California, Tectonics Observatory at Caltech, California Science Teachers of the Year, and the New York Hall of Science. “To date, there have been very few efforts to create genuine partnerships among the scientific, entertainment, and education communities,” said Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences. “Our review panel believes that the Science in Motion project is an excellent opportunity to bring together those communities to build a very unique and powerful educational experience.”

Press Release Article and Interview

“We will create opportunities to marvel and offer meaningful learning in the form of play and creation,” explained Lucien Vattel, GameDesk Executive Director.  The school will open in the fall of 2012 with approximately 80 sixth graders, expanding to cover grades 6 through 12 in subsequent years.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the planning of the school and the development of novel curriculum design tools for the school’s rollout in the coming year.

As part of the WCG 2010 Grand Final kick off, WCG donated Samsung SyncMaster computer monitors to the GameDesk Institute through the Los Angeles County Education Foundation (LACEF) to enhance STEM-based GameDesk pilot courses and after-school programs.

“Games and technology are a great way to engage at-risk kids,” said Madeline Hall, director of the Los Angeles County Education Foundation. “Having access to the best tools in our classrooms will help disadvantaged students experience the opportunities available for them in the broader world.” “This is a generous contribution, the Institute will put this technology to work right away,” stated Lucien Vattel, GameDesk’s executive director. GameDesk’s mission is to change models of learning though the engagement of games and technology authorship. The Samsung technology will be used in math and science pilot programs at various schools throughout LAUSD and in the after-school lab projects within the Institute.

Check out the entire article here.