Growing up, I was always a huge fan of the Resident Evil series. A virus that breaks out...becomes a pandemic that infects the whole world....turns them into zombies.... and starts an apocalypse? Sign me up! After being given this assignment, the first game that popped into my mind was Resident Evil 4 (RE4)!
Here's a little background information for those of you who do not know RE4: the Umbrella Corporation is a huge conglomerate that has many different businesses throughout the world- department stores, food stores, pharmacies, etc. The corporation was actually also secretly into testing bioweaponery (weapons made from genetic mutations) for war. They had labs that would test many virus' that you would inject into animals and mutate them into weapons for war. Of course, as any apocalyptic story beings, there was a spill, a spread of the disease into the area, and ultimately an outbreak. The outbreak went viral and global and turned almost all of the human race into the walking dead. The games go from the point of view of some of the survivors of the "ground zero" that is Raccoon City. Resident Evil 4 is from the point of view of Leon S. Kennedy, one of the only survivors of Raccoon City, on his mission to find the core of the Umbrella Corporation and take them down. Leon has some insight that directs him to a rural European country that is most likely Spain due to its currency (pesetas) and the Spanish uniforms of the cops. I chose Resident Evil 4 because it is the
first Resident Evil that is first person shooter and incorporates a co-op mode and other changes as compared to the other third person shooter games. In this game you have the opportunity to earn money by killing zombies, purchase weapons, weapon upgrades, and skills with this money, face options and situations that lead you on different paths, and work in tandem with another character to achieve tasks and goals.
The T-Virus and Anti-virus used to mutate genes in living tissue to create bioweaponery
So where are the implications to science education?
In the preceding paragraph there were some buzzwords to science education: virus, bioweaponery, and genetic mutations. These words have almost immediate connections to science. The actual game play, you might not realize it, is bursting with scientific inquiry. When you play RE4 you do not know where to go and what to do. You may have some goals and goal locations to get to, but it's up to the player to figure out how to get there. A long the way, you face obstacles, blockades, hardships and, of course, tons of zombies! This type of game play can emulate a scientific laboratory setting. In a laboratory setting, you could start with a problem. This problem may have one clear outcome or goal. It is up to the scientist to figure out what to do and where to do it in order to figure out how to solve the problem. In both cases, a procedural knowledge would be used and constructed in order to reach the end goal.
(Inventory needs to be organized and fit in a limited space. The money, in pesetas, is shown in the upper right hand corner, and is the money you need to purchase items.)
How do I bring this to the classroom?
In playing a game like Resident Evil 4- a science student can build is scientific inquiry, where the student can challenge the boundaries at which he is given. I already have an idea about a lesson involving this gaming environment. I would suggest that at least 1 week before my class' first laboratory experiment, the activities involve games that require strategy and inquiry to achieve success. As the week builds on, I would have games that involve science and scientific terms (you can find anything on the internet), as a sort of toe-dipping into what I would ultimately want them to do by the end of the following week. By the next week, as they begin their first experiment, I would hope to have imposed on their brains an inquiry and scientific model to help guide them through the scientific experiment. Of course this would have to be more specific and would take time, but it's the beginning draft of an idea!
What do you think?
