Describe where simulations or games might be appropriate to use to enhance learning in your lesson.

In a sense, I am providing students with a simulation of real leaves in my observation exercise. Students are viewing pictures of leaves and interacting with them as if they are real objects by using color charts and movable rulers to examine the leaves.

Although I did not get quite that far in my current storyboard layout, the place I could truly see a game being useful is in the classification section of my storyboard. In order to learn how to classify objects, I would give students a set of familiar household objects - in real life I used a variety of kitchen implements - and ask students to make as many different groups of objects out of the set as they could in a limited time span. As an example, say I gave students images of the following objects:

white spoon
white fork
white knife
white spork
silver spoon
silver fork
silver knife
silver spork
blue spoon
blue fork
blue knife
blue spork


I currently have them classified in groups by color. I could also classify them by edges - spoons are smooth, forks and sporks have limited points, knives have many points - or by purpose, spoons and sporks for liquids, sporks and forks for stabbing, knives for cutting - or by the styles of their handles, or perhaps by size of implement, with spoons being shortest and knives being longest...

This activity could be turned into a game in different ways, and would not be done until students had at least one worked example of a classification system presented to them in order to provide them with the preknowledge to succeed at the game. One game could be to give students a random set of objects and ask them how many different classification systems they could come up with in a set time, and give them points based on how many they can come up with, then change the set of objects and challenge them to find the most sets again. Another game would be to give students a set of objects that are already in a classification system and the students have to figure out what the classification categories are, in which case they would be getting points for correctly identifying the categories. Alternatively, in the same scenario of an established classification system, students could be given one object which they would have to place into the system, and they would receive points for placing it correctly. What I would probably do is a mix of all three, because each exercise gives students a different perspective on the classification systems. The first is to design their own system, the second requires them to consider the classification categories, and the third requires to understand and use someone else's system. In addition, I would supplement each game scenario with thought questions that would require the player to justify his or her answers, in order to ensure that the player was not just playing the game for points but actually considering the underlying meaning.