Build Your Own Moon: Online Lunar Game Nabs Honors

Sat Feb 02, 2013 2:25 pm » by **-Marduk-**

An online game that allows players to build their own moon and sculpt its features has won big praise in science art competition.

The game, called “Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME,” measures how and when players learn as they discover more about how the Earth’s moon formed and, by extension, the solar system. It received an honorable mention in the 2012 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, the journal Science announced today (Jan. 31).

As players experiment with the game, they learn more about one of the easiest heavenly bodies they can study, Selene developers said.

“The moon is the only body in the entire universe that we on Earth can look at with the unaided eye,” Debbie Denise Reese, principle investigator of the overarching Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objectives (CyGaMEs) project, told SPACE.com. “When they look at the moon, players are seeing what actually created those features.”

No longer are the dark plains and overlapping craters a mystery.

“It makes moon observations more meaningful,” Reese said.

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Read more -> http://www.space.com/19573-moon-formati ... -game.html
To learn more about the Selene game, and build your own moon, visit -> http://selene.cet.edu/

Sat Feb 02, 2013 5:15 pm » by **Kaarmaa**

It sounds nice but... :

The Center for Educational Technologies produced Selene to conduct its research. If you're a student between the ages of 9-18, we'd love to have you play. The game takes about an hour to complete, but you can spend more time after checking out Selene's various resources about the Moon. To play, though, you have to be enrolled by an adult recruiter to ensure parent/guardian consent for your participation.

If you're an adult who'd like to help out, click on the Recruiter button at left and help us find players to take part in the study. Being a recruiter is simple and doesn't involve a lot of paperwork. The whole process involves getting oral consent from a parent or guardian, then forwarding Selene registration access to your recruited players. It's that simple.

http://selene.cet.edu/