Digital Zoo Middle School Girls
*** GINA IS EDITING THIS POST, IT WAS ARAN’S ORIGINALLY****
In this project, we implemented a 3-week version of the Digital Zoo epistemic game in 2005 and a 4-week version in 2006. Middle school girls played these versions as summer enrichment programs. Working in teams of three, players designed wire-frame character prototypes for an upcoming animated film. Advanced undergraduate engineering students worked with the teams as Design Advisors, providing guidance with the design process as needed. Several mechanical and biomedical engineering graduate students worked with the players as clients, meeting with them frequently to provide feedback and opinions on their design work. At least three clients came in at the end of each week for a formal design review with the players, creating a professional setting for the design teams to present their engineering progress. The 2005 version was originally modeled after practices observed in an undergraduate engineering design course. The epistemography we conducted on BME 201, a course for sophomore biomedial engineering students, revealed to us how BME students work in teams to solve actual design problems posed by real clients, engaging in authentic engineering tasks.
V. 2005
During the 2005 version of Digital Zoo, data was collected primarily through pre, post, and follow-up interviews with the players. Preliminary analysis of this data suggests that players were able to develop components of the engineering epistemic frame as a result of gameplay. To learn more about the specifics of the results, click
Engineering skills, knowledge, and values
During the interviews, players were asked to help the city of Chicago make a decision about the seats on its public transportation vehicles. Players were given a sheet with information about three design alternatives, asked to choose which one would be the best for the city, and why. The number of features identified by players during the decision making prcess increased significantly from pre to post interview (+1.3 mean increase, p<0.01).
Engineering epistemology
Players were asked to create a flowchart that described the steps they would take in solving the design problem of building a tower out of toothpicks and marshmellows. These flowcharts increased significantly from pre to post interview, both in the number of links (+3.0 mean increase, p<0.05) and nodes (+3.5 mean increase, p<0.05).
Engineering identity
The number of Digital Zoo players who indicated they had thought of themselves as engineers increased from pre- (2/7, 29%) to post-interview (7/7, 100%, p<0.01), with all players responding positively to the Have you ever thought of yourself as an engineer? question in the post-interview. Five players (71%) linked their engineering identity to external expert interactions. In addition, there was a statistically significant correlation between player references to expert interaction and receiving expert feedback (r = 1.00, p<0.01). For example, when asked whether she had ever thought of herself as an engineer in the post-interview, one student responded, Yeah, during Digital Zoo. When asked when specifically she felt like an engineer, she replied:
“Like the [Friday] presentations and the presentation at the end. That was when I saw myself as an engineer I liked presenting my things and showing everybody what I made I learned that there were things I could change about [my designs] because they like they had certain things to say about it like some things worked better than like another thing so then I could like make mine even better.”
In other words, meeting with the external engineering experts and receiving feedback on their virtual creatures were essential to the process of engineering identity development for the Digital Zoo players.
V. 2006
Game activities for the 2006 version were refined from the 2005 version.
During the summer of 2006, twelve middle school girls played a four-week version of the Digital Zoo epistemic game. The players worked in teams of three as part of the Digital Zoo Prototype Development Department to develop a series of animated, wire-frame characters that expressed a particular emotion, using the Sodaconstructor spring-mass modeling environment.
Advanced undergraduate engineering students functioned as design advisors to the teams, providing feedback and guidance with the design process as needed. A panel of three engineering experts came in at the end of each week for a formal design review with the design teams, creating a professional setting for the players to present their engineering progress. Preliminary results demonstrate that the players were able to learn about concepts in physics (such as center of mass) and biomechanics (such as gait). In addition, players began to develop the epistemic frame of engineering, as evidenced by an increased understanding of the design process and the profession as a whole.
Currently, we are continuing to analyze data from the epistemic game as well as plan the next iteration of the Digital Zoo… check back for more specific results soon!
Publications
Engineering girls gone wild: Developing an engineering identity in Digital Zoo.
Svarovsky, G. N., & Shaffer, D. W. (2006). Engineering girls gone wild: Developing an engineering identity in Digital Zoo. Poster at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), Bloomington, IN.
