Educational Game about Randomness & Evolution for Students in Science – EGRESS

The project EGRESS (Educational Game about Randomness & Evolution for Students in Science) is concerned with teaching and learning of the concepts of chance and evolution in the theory of evolution for students (aged 12-15). The originality of the project is based on a strong emphasis on the plural concept of chance and its role in the evolutionary process, using the inherent role of chance in any gaming activity. We make the hypothesis that an explicit approach based on the plural concept of chance would allow students to go beyond finalist and transformist conception of the theory of evolution. Moreover, we make the hypothesis that a tangible game, extended by augmented reality, allow the modelisation of complex concepts, such as chance and evolution, in an activity that is motivating for students and giving them feedback beneficial for learning.

EGRESS therefore proposes a creative methodology of meta-design of a tangible game, extended by augmented reality, that lower secondary school teachers can use to engage their students to manipulate three sub-concepts of chance - luck (or fortuite event), random probability, and contingency with respect to a theoretical system - in order to understand evolutionary processes. The project aims at studying the didactical efficiency of the game. In other words, the project explores what the instrumented activity using the game allows students to learn, but also the effect it has on teachers’ practice renewal when they use the game and augmented reality. With this project, we are expecting that the use of such a game and associated newly-created teaching resources will facilitate teachers’ activity in their class to teach concepts that are difficult to address. Moreover, we are expecting an improvement in students’ capacity to make non-deterministic reasoning in science.