One of the main topics in class (Global Citizenship. It's kind of like Social Studies) during the first trimester was about promoting interest in science. Students were tasked with creating and finding ways to generate interest in their school community. During that time we explored multiple ways to not only make others curious, but to make them learn in the process.
The first method we approached was the simplest one. Posters and infographics. Using tools such as Pages, the creation process was very quick and everyone had good ideas. Interesting facts, eye-catching titles and well drawn/design images were abundant. But the drawbacks were more than obvious. They had already worked on similar activities in other classes, and before even sharing them they knew it wouldn’t be enough. There are already dozens of posters around the school, adding a couple more won’t make a change. And sharing them online is even worse. They are billions of images and videos all fighting for your attention. What interest could a single infographic generate in a teen from middle school when they’re on their phone? None. They’ll swipe past it in less than half a second if it’s not a meme or a funny video. So we moved on to another approach.
The second one we looked at was experiments. Experiments are very eye-catching, whoever is performing it can give a very informational explanation of it, and it generates interest/curiosity in the audience. The problem we discussed was that the more interesting the experiment was, the more expensive and rare were the materials and tools needed to recreate it. Also, they can get very dangerous.
So we leaned on the use of technology and we explored simulations. They can replicate experiments without breaking the bank. Also, they can be accessed and performed by anyone without any risks of being burnt or injured. The last benefit was the one we highlighted the most. The fact that they can be accessed by anyone with a modern device. But it still wasn’t as good as what we needed. Simulations don’t pique people’s interest as much as a real experiment.
So I steered the class to the last option. A video game. We explored the benefits and it had everything we needed. The novelty of a video game made in school is sure to generate interest in other classmates. If the game is fun, players will keep coming back to it. The game would obviously be educational, thus ensuring that players learn something, even if that wasn’t their main focus when playing. And lastly, since we made it in Roblox, everyone could access it with their phones, tablets, computers and even consoles. Also, it’s a very popular platform among that age group.
The idea wasn’t perfect and it wasn't the only thing we could've done, of course. But considering our other options and what we planned to achieve, it was a very good one. And so we did. The game would be about mini games related to science. Each game would be related to a science subject from school. They would get points by winning, and then buy cosmetics or other trinkets in the game. We had a lot of ideas, some more originals than others. Most of them were about trivias. I really had to motivate and encourage the teams that we made to really let their imagination fly. And they did.
One very nice idea came from a kid that is not very academically motivated. A lot of the assignments he delivers are clearly made with AI and he usually tries to take as many shortcuts as possible when working in class. I expected him to propose a trivia, like many others had done. But he didn’t. His ideas was about a giant periodic table. The game would give all players an element and everyone has to run and touch/stand in that element, earning points. The players who get it wrong, lose, and go back to the lobby. The process would be repeated until only one player is left.
I loved it. I didn’t see it coming at all. I had doubts that maybe he copied the idea from somewhere else, but I’ve played a lot of video games and can’t remember something like that. Also, there’s no way he asked an AI because he didn’t have his iPad with him. Also AI isn’t going to give you a creative yet simple idea like that one. So it was all him. I congratulated him and decided that his idea would be one of the first we bring to life.
He wasn’t the only one to surprise me. Others had great ideas that I didn’t expect them to come up with. And so, in the following couple weeks they worked in their teams, designing and sketching every aspect of their mini game. The programming and developing side of things would be handled by me.
Usually people here share stories of success. But this one isn’t. At least not in the traditional sense. I made a lot of mistakes. Number one, I designated only three weeks to start working on the game, which ended up not being enough. Number two, I really underestimated their ideas before planning this project. I expected them to give me a lot more simpler ideas. And so, the time and effort I thought I would have to designate in programming/developing was a lot less. Number 3, I made too many teams and so there were a lot of mini games to be made. Number 4, I overestimated my own skills. Roblox mostly uses the Lua programming language which I had not used before. The consensus online is that it’s really simple to learn. It wasn’t. Number 5, we aimed too high, by adding lots of other features that we couldn’t implement such as currency, a fully featured lobby, etc. The list of mistakes goes on and on.
So… What was the result? I created a simple lobby for the game and only manage to finish 2 mini games out of the 15 we had planned in the three weeks we had available. And one of them wasn’t even educational. It wasn’t all bad though. The students were very enthusiastic during the process and were happy with the final product. Even if we couldn’t complete all of our goals. Nowadays I feel like I cared more about it than they did.
I said previously that I didn’t consider it a success in the traditional sense. That’s because I did still succeed. Just not in ways that I had planned. The project did generate interest in science. Maybe not in chemistry or biology, but it did in technology. When I would show our game to other grades (7th and 8th) they would wonder how it was made and be amazed when I would mention that 9th grade did it. Which would prompt more questions about how it works. I also did manage to make the mini game about the periodic table. It was the first one I finished, actually. I like to think that I didn’t fail encouraging the kid by showing him his idea come to life. Finally, it was a great learning experience for myself. To not underestimate them, and to not overestimate myself either. And to plan my class projects better.
I'm not excusing my failings, of course. I screwed up. A lot. There's no way around it. But it wasn't a catastrophic failure. All in all, I'm grateful for the experience and when I try this same project next year I'll see if I actually learned something or I was just talking the talk. See ya :)
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