Wisconsin Science Journal

The Wisconsin Science Journal game – a pre-cursor to the Journalism.net games – was played twice by Madison-area middle school students during the spring and summer of 2004. While playing this series of two 12-hour games, players researched topics of their own choice, interviewed friends or neighbors to learn about their opinions, and wrote two feature stories for one of three desks: Environment, Health, or Technology.

In the WSJ games, we investigated whether the practices of professional journalists could provide a framework for middle and high school students to develop scientific and technological literacies. These games also provided pilot data that helped us build a better 45-hour science journalism game: Science.net.