The Bumblebee Game is an exciting outdoor game, which demonstrates aspects of bumblebee natural history including food chains, food webs and competition for food, predation by crab spiders, parasitism by "Conopidae" ("Diptera") and brood parasitism by cuckoo bees. It has been played successfully with groups of 10-25 people. Although most suitable…

Games like "Civilization III," a strategy game that allows players to create civilizations that stand the test of time, are attracting increasing attention in the educational community for their potential to support learning. A recent article in BBC news observed that "using "Civilisation III" to teach students about history showed that it could…

One of the first tasks students learn in chemistry is to pronounce and spell the names of elements and learn their corresponding chemical symbols. Repetitive oral recitation is commonly used to learn this information, but games and puzzles can make this task creative, variable, and fun. Elemental Food for Thought is a puzzlelike activity that…

This column describes suggestions for daily activities in a calendar format. This month's theme is math and more. Among other things, this column features several web sites for mathematics activities.

The card game SET has attracted the attention of math and game enthusiasts alike. In this article, I present a first semester Abstract Algebra project that guides the students through an algebraic formulation of the game. There are many interesting mathematical questions that one can ask about the game, and I illustrate how the project can be used…

The author begins his classic book with "I want to talk about video games--yes, even violent video games--and say some positive things about them." With this simple but explosive statement, one of America's most well-respected educators looks seriously at the good that can come from playing video games. In this revised edition, new games like…

This paper will present a review of design-based research conducted over the past 10 years that has modeled and promoted students' reasoning, conceptual change and argumentative dialogue processes and practices through designing a number of digital dialogue games. This line of work was inspired by some challenges and insights that emerged during…

Several states have now implemented policies restricting basic writers' access to four-year universities, and the students most likely to be affected are African American, Latino, and nonnative English speakers. The pressure to speed students' mastery of standard written English, along with the trend toward more explicit instruction in second…

Subjects such as techniques for genetic diagnosis, cloning, sequencing, and gene therapy are now part of our lives and raise important questions about ethics, future medical diagnosis, and such. Students from different countries observe this explosion of biotechnological applications regardless of their social, academic, or cultural backgrounds,…

The story-telling multimedia, Living Book, is one of the most common edutainment genres, in which children hear and play with interactive and animated stories, in a highly-engaging multimedia environment. Living Books are designed so that every word of the story is projected as text on the computer monitor simultaneously with its narration. This…

The paper reports a small-scale, long-term pilot project designed to foster strategic and reasoning abilities in young primary school pupils by engaging them in a number of computer games, mainly those usually called mind games (brainteasers, puzzlers, etc.). In this paper, the objectives, work methodology, experimental setting, and tools used in…

Although much is known about the differences between expert and novice problem solvers, knowledge of those differences typically does not provide enough detail to help instructors understand why some students seem to learn physics while solving problems and others do not. A critical issue is how students access the knowledge they have in the…

Everyone knows that teachers do not have unlimited time, a log of experience, or a deep understanding of all the mathematics they teach. To solve this problem, teachers often use textbooks, and the accompanying teacher's resource books, as sources of activities and advice about how to help students learn mathematics. The activity that prompted…

Mathematics games are widely employed in school classrooms for such reasons as a reward for early finishers or to enhance students' attitude towards mathematics. During a four week period, a total of 222 Grade 5 and 6 (9 to 12 years old) children from Melbourne, Australia, were taught multiplication and division of decimal numbers using calculator…

While strongly endorsing a multi-pronged approach to vocabulary instruction, Moen takes pains to include and even emphasize work with English Language Learners. By adhering to the principles of A.C.T. (Access to texts, individual Choice of reading material, and Time to read), Moen finds myriad ways to make learning words a creative and social…