When you look at a cell in a textbook, it just sits there on the page.
When you play the CellCraft video game, the cell moves, just as it would in real life.
Throw in the need to save a planet of platypuses from possible extinction and you have an excellent incentive for learning everything you need to know to help the cell thrive.
It all adds up to an experience that is fun and educational.
"I think it sticks to your brains more than regular textbook studying does," said Makenzie Whitener, an eighth-grader at Hanes Middle School. "It uses your problem-solving skills."
She said she thinks that CellCraft would be welcome in her home, where her parents limit the video games that she can play.
"I think my parents would definitely have this one because it's educational," Makenzie said.
CellCraft was created -- with the backing of a $25,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation and some help along the way from Hanes students -- by graduate students and a professor at Wake Forest University.
Yesterday, Hanes eighth-graders got a chance to play the game before the creators headed to Washington to present the game at an event for MacArthur grant winners, being held today at the White House in conjunction with National Lab Day.
Anthony Pecorella, who has a bachelor's degree in math and computer science and a master's in mathematics from Wake Forest, designed the game at the suggestion of Jed Macosko, an assistant professor of physics. To finance the project, Pecorella, who now lives and works in Durham, applied for and received a MacArthur Foundation grant.
CellCraft is a strategy game that could be compared to such games as SimCity, a video game in which players build a city.
"The rules of the game are based on the rules of biology," Pecorella said.
Viruses fill the role of the bad guys.
A big part of the challenge was to make something that had just the right mix of fun and education, Pecorella said. He designed it with middle-school students in mind and asked Hanes students to provide feedback on an early version. The game can also be useful for high-school students as well, he said, and he knows of one college professor who plans to have his students use the game to review the material.
Pete Dunlap, who is finishing his master's degree in education at Wake, did the research to make sure that the material in the game was scientifically accurate and then worked with Hanes students to determine whether playing the game is indeed a good way to learn.
"That is certainly the hope," Pecorella said.
Dunlap said that more research over time would be useful but that his preliminary research indicates that the answer is yes, it does help students learn.
The game is set in motion by the news that a meteor is about to strike the platypuses' home planet. The hope is that they will be able to inject their genetic information into a cell being created by the player and to get it safely off the planet before the meteor strikes. For a new player, completing a game might take 1½ hours or more, Pecorella said.
He said he plans to do a little more tweaking before the game becomes generally available early this summer.
Macosko has a strong interest in finding innovative ways to teach science to young people, and he also worked with students at Atkins High School and with Dionysios "Dennis" Nikolaidis of Animusing Productions to develop Cell Side Story, a three-minute animated movie designed to get students interested in biotechnology that was released earlier this year.
"Cell Side Story is a movie you watch once, and it gets you excited. This is the more personal contact that allows you to learn," Macosko said of CellCraft.
Vicki Clinkscales, who teaches science at Hanes, gave the game a rave review.
"I love it," Clinkscales said. "They are learning when they don't realize they are learning. They are just having fun."
kunderwood@wsjournal.com
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