The Yard Games

Wisconsin teachers teamed up with developers to design the Yard Games, hoping to make science systems easier to understand. This is particularly helpful since the Next Generation of Science Standards place an emphasis on systems and scale as cross-cutting concepts. In some games, such as The Carbon Cycle, tutorials are available to teach kids how to play. It is important that students read through this fine print, because crucial scientific rules are spelled out, such as that matter can't be created or destroyed. The Carbon Cycle scaffolds learning by first showing them how the carbon will move through the atmosphere as they play and then taking that support away, so students have to figure it out for themselves.

The games do not stand alone and will require additional support and coaching by a teacher. For example, students playing the Antibiotic Resistance game could click through it and make the assumption that the antibiotic itself is causing the mutations on individual bacteria, making them resistant. The Yard Games is missing a teacher's guide or support questions to ensure that these misconceptions don't happen. While the cartoon at the beginning presents an issue, such as the bacteria on their pizza, this storyline doesn't necessarily continue throughout the game. The Yard Games would be improved if the kids could feel as if they had solved a problem by playing the game.