I will always remember how sedimentary rocks are formed. This may or may not be important in the future but this game was the first that came to mind when I asked myself, “When was the last time I learned something from a game?”
It’s been several years since I even thought about the Magic School Bus Explores Inside the Earth, let alone played it. It was your typical educational game. There was a goal: find Arnold’s missing rocks. Then there many obstacles/steps to achieve that goal. But at each step you had to use the knowledge you had gained in order to complete the steps. You had to understand how rocks forms were made in order to create them yourself. You had to understand your environment in order to find the appropriate rocks that might be formed there.
But why and how did I retain this knowledge over all of these years? I’m not quite sure but it was something about the way that informational was presented to me. It’s a little bit like putting cheese on broccoli. You’re hiding the obvious health factor under the cheese, but it’s still there. This game hid the information in puzzles and adventures but it was still there. And more importantly, I remembered it. Sedimentary rocks are formed when erosion breaks down pieces of earth. After time these layers get molded together to form one rock. In the game, you could find examples of sedimentary rocks when you explored the canyon.
games and play in education 