The international team at Embodied Games is currently working on two products for 2017 release:

The TEST

• The first is a tablet-based test created with the Pacific Science Center (Seattle,WA) and others to assess learners’ knowledge change after viewing a movie on different platforms. The upcoming IMAX® movie is called Amazon Adventure.

The GAME

• The second is a videogame that is also funded by the National Science Foundation AISL grant to create a standalone game for the informal learning of natural selection aimed at middle school children.

In the summer of 2017, the team will begin an NSF-funded study and then release a game for the informal learning of concepts surrounding natural selection. Some of the concepts taught by the game are:

• ·    The organism best suited to the environment survives the longest
• ·    Environments change over time
• ·    Organisms change over time
• ·    Species’ survival occurs across several generations (e.g., Mimicry’s advantages emerge over time)

(Tests and Teacher Guides in 2017)

The formal study will begin in October 2017. Participants will be grade-school children at IMAX theaters within science museums. They begin with the 15-minute pretest composed of traditional MC (multiple choice) questions, and they play the game/test portion in the role of the predator. The MC questions will include a mixture of explicit questions that tap information presented directly in the movie and implicit questions that require inferences that go beyond information presented in the movie. Thus, both explicit examples from the movie and several mimicry examples NOT related to Batesian mimicry or specimens found in the Amazon are included. In addition, analyzing statistics about in-game processes and play decisions will offer more well-rounded profiles of the students’ prior science knowledge. After watching the movie, the children will take a post test consisting of the same MC questions and game play.  Changes in the students’ mental models will be assessed from changes in MC performance and analyzing in-process game play choices

The goal in the test version is to:

• a)    assess what players know about natural selection BEFORE the intervention
• b)    assess what players know about natural selection AFTER the intervention

Design

This is a between subjects five-way design with over 250 4^th through 6^th graders.