School of Dragons

School of Dragons is an engrossing MMORPG where players take lessons at the school on the path to becoming an Ultimate Dragon Trainer. There are science lessons and instructive elements scattered throughout the game and its environment. The game begins like other MMORPGs, with students creating a character and soon thereafter hatching their own dragon. As their dragon matures, players learn about dragon training through flying practice, growing crops to feed dragons, flying exercises, and play. A thorough tutorial helps players get oriented, and then players can complete tasks to gain XP (experience points), UDT (Ultimate Dragon Trainer points), and level up. Players walk around the School of Dragons world, completing quests and tasks and following directions. Once they're oriented, kids are free to explore on their own, revisiting the Farm to grow more food, fishing, and learning from the teachers. All of this serves to level up the character, gain experience, earn coins and gems, and move them toward training their own dragon. A player's dragon can only fly once it's been leveled up sufficiently. Guiding arrows can show players where to go next, but this can also be turned off. The game has a typical WASD-space bar navigation. The guide book keeps each player up to date on everything they need to do and all of their scores.

Since this is an MMORPG, there are many opportunities for interacting with other players: by being "friends" with them, joining clans, using the chat ability, and more. Outside the game, there is also an active online community with forums and many other ways to share the experience, such as through making fan art, fan fiction, and more. One important thing to note is that, while this game can be played totally for free, players are continually bombarded with reminders that they will get a "better" experience by becoming members (i.e., paying for the game). Every time students purchase something from the store with in-game money, they are reminded of the discount that members receive. They are given the opportunity frequently to click on buttons that take them to screens to sign up as members. 

While School of Dragons has plenty of science woven into the story line, that content shows up a bit sporadically. It's a game first, education second, but there's still plenty of learning to be had. If playing alone, students would likely gain some science knowledge as they unlocked content, but it's the extension activities on the website that make the experience much more complete. There, students can play science games, find worksheets, and get experiment ideas. Within the game, most of the science is worked into the story line, but some parts are a little separate: For example, the Hiccup's Scientific Method videos pull students out of the dragon-training world for a bit. Still, if they play extensively, students will definitely gain science knowledge as they take classes from the dragon trainers and practice skills. The game covers an extensive list of science topics, including the Scientific Method, Physical Science (matter, motion and forces, energy, waves and information transfer), Life Science (organisms, ecosystems, heredity, biological evolution), Earth Science (maps, Earth's systems, meteorology, geology, astronomy), Engineering Design, and Archaeology. These are all unlocked gradually throughout the gameplay, involving students with interactive content, so players (and teachers) need to be patient to reach the meaty material. There's a useful reference manual in-game as well, where much of the science reference content gets unlocked gradually.