See Melanie’s Talk on the Koshland Museum of Science website.
And you can watch me here:
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Blog Archives
User Interface notes
by 
Melanie
MelanieOur goal: Get the average 12 through 50 year old to play with molecular cell biology and biochemistry.
Plan: Create a commercially successful game that requires the player to use proteins for their correct functions in order to win.
Problem: What is molecular cell biology and biochemistry?
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Posted in Education and Evaluation, Game Design and Development, Newsletter
Tags: Design, DevBlog, education, UI
Tags: Design, DevBlog, education, UI
What can a 9 year old do to learn real biology?
by Melanie
MelanieI met some terrific families at the Marian Koshland Science Museum this weekend. Some kids and parents wanted to know about how to learn about computers and programming. Others wanted to know more about biology. One parent emailed me later to ask about his 9-year old son who is especially interested in biology.
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Posted in Biology, Education and Evaluation, Game Design and Development, Newsletter
Tags: Cell Biology, DIY, education, Home School, Science, Science at Home
Tags: Cell Biology, DIY, education, Home School, Science, Science at Home
Guest Post, Immune Defense Discussion
by Melanie
MelanieElizabeth “Li” Van Nostrand writes about biology, psychology and video games at her blog, AcesoUnderGlass.com. She is a rare sciencer/gamer person. She was kind enough to give us some comments on her experience playing Immune Defense. My replies are in grey. You can see, she gave me some excellent questions.
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Spock, Vulcans, Art and Love
by Melanie
MelanieLeonard Nimoy died today. We are all another step closer to being the ones responsible for providing a place for science, relationships and humanity in the world. We should all feel just a bit more urgency for our stories to be fair, our view of the world to be optimistic,
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Games are magic places that introduce concepts and create interest
by Melanie
MelanieA video game is a prepared space (Kurt Squire’s term, I believe) where people can see what you have prepared for them. A classroom is a place where teachers prepare a lecture, a discussion and group activities that should lead a group of students all together, at the same time,
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Posted in Education and Evaluation, Game Design and Development, Newsletter
Tags: education, introduction, Prepared space, Science, Squire, Video games
Tags: education, introduction, Prepared space, Science, Squire, Video games
Our Mission.
by Melanie
MelanieEveryone knows how to kill zombies. Why don’t people know how to kill measles?
A lack of understanding of molecular biology is what stands between our current society and one in which the average person appreciates modern biomedical science. We know from school that cells make energy, that atoms make up everything and that proteins are “sometimes enzymes.”
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Research based design of molecular science video game
by Melanie
MelanieBackground information: Melanie designed Immune Defense based on her research on Immune Attack, a 3D first person shooter style game where a player uses a microbot to activate proteins. Immune Attack, released in 2008) was developed by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Learning Technologies Program, which Melanie managed from 2008-2013.
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Posted in Education and Evaluation, Game Design and Development, Newsletter
Tags: education, evaluation, Science
Tags: education, evaluation, Science
Science Game Center
by Melanie
MelanieThe Science Game Center is an online magazine for games that teach science. Card games, Android phone games, PC/Mac download games, browser games and iPad games… search our games by platform, by subject and by age. You’ll love our site for its friendliness, clarity and usefulness. You can add your own contribution by reviewing games you have played or used to teach.
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Building our confidence in our abilities to understand science
by Melanie
MelanieIt is well known that people walk away from STEM careers despite their sincere interest and excellent abilities. Most of the reasons listed for why people who have expressed an interest, chosen the field, have done as well as any one else, would choose to leave or feel out of place have something to do with a feeling of not belonging.
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