An environmental disaster has taken place on Planet Earth and we need your help.
The Smithsonian Institution and the MIT Education Arcade invite all scientists-in-training ages 10 ½ to 14 to log onto VANISHED and help decipher clues that unravel one of the world’s biggest mysteries. An online/offline interactive event, VANISHED is an eight-week episodic quest that will transform you into principal scientific investigators who must collaborate to find the answers. You will race against time as you solve games, puzzles, and other online challenges; visit real museums; collect samples from in and around your homes; and even partner with some of the Smithsonian’s world renowned scientists and investigators, to help unlock the true secrets of this catastrophe—before it’s too late. Runs April 4 -May 31. 2011
A game for everything...
Primarily, it's a system to let you measure how much housework people are doing - someone who only seems to wash the dishes might actually be putting in a good couple of hours a week, when it's all added up, and the housemate who appears never to do anything might be at their busiest when everybody else is out...
Jane McGonigal takes to our pulpit to challenge our assumptions about games as ways to "pass" or "waste" our time - and argues instead that we are never more productive than when we are immersed in a good game.