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NARR: The Federation of American Scientists in Washington D.C. has begun work on three experimental games. One of them takes children back in time to ancient Iraq. Another trains groups of New York City firefighters in dangerous scenarios. The third is aimed at high school seniors and college undergrads. It's called Viral Attack.
(music comes in over last line, then full music.)
(slightly louder) What you're listening to is the sound of the human blood stream. In video game world. Stephen Gunther manages the project.
AX: Gunther: So to describe this, you see a macrophage going through the bloodstream here and picking up a chemical gradient trail that comes from the infection. (10)
NARR (sound lower): If you don't know what a macrophage or chemical gradient trail is, that's okay... the game will teach you. The sharper-than-life graphics will transform a player into a microscopic commander instructing a whole army of macrophages, or white blood cells, who track and kill foreign infectious invaders.
AX: Gunther: in a second you'll see it attach to a cell wall, and you'll see it extravisate, which means it's pretty much going through the wall of the blood vessel into the surrounding tissue. And it's eating up the bad guys right now. (15)
NARR: If you don't learn your biology quickly, the patient's body you're sworn to protect will sicken and die... sometimes in horrendous ways, though the game designers haven't gotten that far yet.
The Federation of American Scientists is a long way from California, where most video games are made. From the office doors, it's just a five-minute cab ride to the halls of Congress. That's important, because the Federation is backing legislation called The Digital Opportunity Investment Trust. It was proposed last Thursday by Senators Christopher Dodd, Richard Durbin, and Olympia Snowe, and it would set aside about 20 Billion dollars over the next decade to encourage new educational technologies.
Michele Roper is a project manager at the Federation.
AX: Roper: "One of the things we've seen is that educational games are often not quite as exciting as "Grand Theft Auto," so we're out talking to our focus groups saying "what's going to make this fun and compelling?" 11
Roper is working on a children's game called Discovery Babylon. Players will travel back in time and use simulated digital cameras to take pictures of artifacts and solve mysteries in Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization. The game uses 3-D digital imaging of real museum pieces gathered from around the world. Roper says part of Her project is to show how art and history can be preserved and shared through digital technologies.
AX: Roper: there so many more things out there, like artifacts and statues and all the things that's in the national park service. You can really do some incredible projects to bring disparate collections together. 12
Even when it comes to educational games, some educators caution that it's important not to get caught up in all the excitement of the technology.
AX: Jolls: I think we really have to be careful about looking to computers as the end-all be-all solution to anything. They're just a means to an end.
NARR: Tessa Jolls is the President and CEO of the Center for Media Literacy in Santa Monica, California. She generally supports the government trust And the Federation's video games, but she she says it's important that some of the trust money should be used to teach kids to think critically about All digital media, including video games.
NARR: The Federation's games aren't just for just for kids. Simulation programs have been used for years to train pilots and the military. Now, in collaboration with the New York City Fire Department, they're developing a program called Mass Casualty Incident Response. It will help train groups of firefighters in simulated infernos that would otherwise be nearly impossible to recreate.
The designers at the Federation of American Scientist hope their programs will be used as models to prove that educational video games can be effective, and profitable. Stephan Gunther, from the Federation:
AX GUNTHER: Hopefully games like this that take a cue from the narrative structure, if you will, and the game playing structure of more commercially successful games. Using those lessons for the educational market will make those games more exciting, too, and who knows, maybe down the road a commercial success as well.
NARR: The first versions of the educational games will be ready for release by the 2006 school year. The Digital Opportunity legislation will be debated in the coming months.
Tom Randall, Columbia Radio News