Hi welcome to or back to my blog, in this post I’ll be talking about my most recent project in Scimatics! The driving question for this project was: “How are thematic and mathematical elements used in game design?” In this project we assigned a partner and we needed to make a board game with 10 key science concepts to do with Scimatics. In the beginning we did lots of stuff to work our way up to making to board game, to textbook work to MindNodes. For myself I learned that the textbook was really complicated, if it got too complex I would watch YouTube videos. For the mind node we needed to write down lots of questions we had about tectonic plates and things that happen because of them. Then we got around to answering them.

I had more questions but I wasn’t sure on how to answer them (because of if we didn’t learn it), I looked on google and I found the answer but since I didn’t learn about it I didn’t write down the answer. My partner and I (Her name is Evangeline, click her name if you would like to see her blog) Thought of lots of ideas on how to incorporate 10 key concepts and realized the best way was through cards and making the islands apart because of “Continental drift.” Then we started to work on the rules, our game was easy to play it was just pretty hard to explain. It was easy for us to come up with a name though because we named it after what you need and how you get it (The name is the title of this post, Evidence Islands). 

If you would like to see the board and rules, here they are!

My over all grade was shown in a sophisticated way. In other words I got a rainbow (A). I am really happy with what I got and think that during the time I  had I used it well. I am very happy with my end result and can’t wait to play it myself! Hopefully in the future we will do more board games because I really enjoyed this project.

Core Competencies

 EVALUATING: Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of evidence. 

For this part we needed to have the theory of plate tectonics and supporting evidence to be the theme of our game. We also needed at least 10 key science concepts that are well described and game pieces that visually represent tectonic ideas. I think I did well and met all of the expectations, especially with the 10 key science concepts. Maybe in the future I could make the game pieces visually represent the science concepts more.

QUESTIONING AND PREDICTING: Demonstrate a sustained intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.

For this part we needed to use time in class effectively and only for learning. We also had to work with no distractions. For this part I think I used my time very effectively the only part is that maybe in the future I could get less distracted when working and more focused on the part of the project I was working on.

UNDERSTANDING AND SOLVING: Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving.

For this one we needed to use probability in lots of turns to determine the outcome of what could be rolled or drawn. We needed several examples of combinations of events that is clearly calculated in the game rules. I think we did well on this, we had lots of different ways it could happen. The only part I would improve on is making the cards the same as the probability, we made the probability then the cards and we mixed up a few things. 

Overall I am very happy with the end result of our project. I think Our game really did well on reflecting on the driving question. Like I said, Can’t wait to play my game! Cya next time on my next post!