Emerging contexts for science education: embedding a forensic science game in a virtual world

• Authors: Carlos Monroy;Yvonne Klisch;Leslie M. Miller
• Venue: Proceedings of the 2011 iConference
• Year: 2011

Advancements in technology are transforming the educational landscape at a rapid pace, impacting educators, students, and researchers. In particular, educators are increasingly using computer-based games as learning environments with a focus on education over entertainment. The emerging phenomenon of serious gaming requires new approaches to serve the growing number of people using them and to better understand their effectiveness, impact, and the challenges they pose. Serious games offer fertile ground for studying the interactions among people, technology, and information (the core components in information science). In this paper, we describe an approach for integrating an existing forensic science game into a virtual world for adolescents known as Whyville. We explain the rationale in our approach, the infrastructure involved in embedding a game in a virtual world, the challenges we faced, and the lessons learned. A total of 2,206 people played the game throughout the 35 days it was available. The results of the players' survey responses and comments on how they explored this information space are analyzed. Our approach offers an interesting glimpse of how people between the ages of 11 and 18 explore a science game hosted within a virtual world.