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The Pack: Eliciting Playful Embodied Computational and Systems Thinking. In Design Make Play for Equity, Inclusion, and Agency

Lyons, L., Ba, H., Uzzo, S. and Thompson, W. (2021). The Pack. Eliciting Playful Embodied Computational and Systems Thinking. In Design Make Play for Equity, Inclusion, and Agency: The Evolving Landscape of Creative STEM Learning, edited by H. Ba, K. Culp & M. Honey. Routledge Publishing. 208.


In The Pack, an immersive computer video game developed and tested by the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) and its partners, children use an avatar, along with virtual "creatures" that can dig, build, and do other functions, to explore the effects of change on virtual ecosystems. In the version of this game that emerged from several iterations of brainstorming, design, testing, and prototyping, players discover new creatures and entice them to join their "pack." They can "stack" these creatures sequentially into a sort of totem pole to create a set of ordered instructions - an algorithm - that they can use to transform the simulated world and solve complex environmental systems challenges. These children are doing more than playing. The game was designed to engage children from underserved groups in learning the habits of mind and problem-solving skills that characterize computational thinking (CT) and are essential in the practice of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).


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