Biology, the game of Life

Recently, we've been discussing the use of game and gaming in a classroom setting.  I've never been a huge fan of video games, but I remember fondly the days of Number and Word Munchers.  We'd spend our "free time" in class learning sight words and multiplication tables.  For history, we'd routinely play Oregon Trail and "learn" all about the westward migration.  Many tragic days, we found that our ox had died, Timmy had lost a leg or somebody got some random disease.  We rolled the dice to see if we'd successfully ford a river.  In math, we even went so far as programing simple games along the lines of Snake and Rodent's Revenge.  Each game taught us simple problem solving skills, mathematical formulas, historical "lessons", homework avoidance techniques and many other important life skills.  On the other hand, all utility aside, what lessons have been dumbed down to scientifically inaccurate and when does that matter?

Today, I seem to have forgotten this element of childhood.  What games now would work?  What would entice students now?  I recently attempted to play a game called Caduceus.  The premise, I'll admit, was pretty cool.  You essentially start out as a student at an academy and are asked to go to some high council to help solve a pressing problem...never mind why.  You are tasked with analyzing phlegm slides for a dangerous contagion.   While slugging your way through endless samples, you cut your finger and you have a Eureka! moment and decide that the problem must be in the blood.  This is where the game actually begins...as do the problems with it.  You are asked to locate the "unique" cells in a slide in order to determine which one(s) is/are responsible.  While teaching kids to analyze evidence for minute details is useful, no diseases are going to be "unique".  I felt this task not only boring, but horrible inaccurate for processes.  Why not have students find the most common?  After about 10 minutes of clicking matches, I "won" and was then taken to a page where I'd have to start an account.

Now, I propose another game that might be fun in the classroom.  Laws of physics seem to hold (save for a few...which are described as "advances in technology") and your only task is to solve the puzzle.  Portal has become one of my favorite games.  You must go through a series of strategic challenges to come to an answer.  There are no other characters and only a few minor gaps in scientific accuracy (save for the whole...in the future thing).

I think there is a future for gaming in school because of the simple fact that kids love games.  If you can find ones that are 1) fun, 2) challenging and 3) accurate, then you're set.  The problems begin when you're lacking in any of these categories.