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Virtual Field Trip: Patterns in Gaming

Summary:

Secret codes and hidden messages fill this fun filled virtual field trip. Students meet video game designer, Professor Lindsay Grace, and learn all about how game designers use patterns and codes to send information through video games. 

Activity

Devise a method to send visual information through code and write a secret message using Braille, morse code or binary code and see if a friend can decipher your messages. 

Connections to Other Resources

This virtual field trip is also used in the “Too Much Gaming?” full project. 

Overview & Materials

Subject: Science, ELA

Grade: 3-5

Student Handouts (Download)

Topic: patterns in information, game design

Materials Needed:

  • pencil

  • coloring tools
  • paper

Aligned Standards

Common Core Reading (CCSS):

  • Informational/Nonfiction Standards R.I. 1-10 for grades 3-5

NGSS Standards:

 

Performance Expectations (PE):

  • 4-PS4-3 Generate and compare multiple solutions that use patterns to transfer information.*

Science and Engineering Practices (SEP):

  • Generate and compare multiple solutions to a problem based on how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the design solution.

Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI):

  • PS4.C: Information Technologies and Instrumentation: Digitized information can be transmitted over long distances without significant degradation. High-tech devices, such as computers or cell phones, can receive and decode information—convert it from digitized form to voice—and vice versa.
  • ETS1.C: Optimizing The Design Solution: Different solutions need to be tested in order to determine which of them best solves the problem, given the criteria and the constraints. (secondary)

Crosscutting Concepts (CC):

  • Similarities and differences in patterns can be used to sort and classify designed products.
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