Immune Attack: Video Game To Teach Kids About Cell Biology

Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage is one of my favorite books ever, so I found this pretty neat: The Federation of American Scientists has developed a video game called Immune Attack to teach high school kids the basics of cell biology. The game involves navigating a nanobot through a 3D environment of blood vessels and connective tissue in attempt to retrain a patient's immune system to fight infections:

... results find that students who play the game show significant gains in confidence with the molecular science-related material and gains in their knowledge of cell biology and molecular science.

“Our most exciting results demonstrate that Immune Attack players appear more confident in their abilities to understand a diagram about white blood cells than students who did not play Immune Attack, said [Melanie] Stegman.” [...]

“The amount of detail about proteins, chemical signals and gene regulation that these 15-year-olds were devouring was amazing. Their questions were insightful. I felt like I was having a discussion with scientist colleagues,” said Stegman.

Link: Free downloadable game at the FAS | Melanie's blog post about the History of Immune Attack

Previously on Neatorama: Video Game Helps Young Patients Fight Cancer