Sometimes the best way to learn something is by playing games. Don’t believe us? Here is a report from a group of scientists from Stanford University saying that when games are used for educational purposes, they open new opportunities for deeper learning.
Educational games are specifically designed to assist students in their studies. They help learners to gain important insights on certain topics of various subjects, reinforce or cement development and build their learning skills as they progress forward in the game.
We have games that teach math and physics, and there are many business simulation games too, but what about biology? Here, we have assembled a list of biology games that will add value to studies. With the help of these games, teachers and parents can teach important concepts of biology to their students and kids.
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13. Phylo
Price: Free
Platform: Browser-based
Phylo is all about multiple sequence alignment optimization. As soon as you open the game, you are presented with pattern-matching puzzles that resemble nucleotide sequences of different phylogenetic taxa. Your task it to optimize the alignment (by matching maximum number of colors and reducing gaps) and build the highest point value score.
The interesting fact about this game is it represents actual sequencing data from the University of California Santa Cruz Genome Browser.
12. Lizard Island
Price: Free
Available at: Askabiologist
Can you imagine your life as a lizard? I am sure not, but here is a chance for young players to learn about important concepts of population ecology, who study various dynamics of populations of particular species and how they intact with the immediate environment.
As a lizard, you will learn about the amount of energy they spent to gather food and reproduce. Then you’ll explore how to use math formulas to find out if a population will shrink, grow or remain the same size.
11. MarcoPolo Ocean
MarcoPolo Ocean is a fun way for kids to learn about marine life. It is a free play puzzle app that exposes kids to vocabulary about marine life and vessels. It is fun, colorfully animated, and narrated to keep kids engaged.
They can explore anything from the dark depths to the shallow areas of the ocean and collect images of various marine species to learn their names. The game also has a puzzle-style shipbuilding feature, with which kids can explore different types of water transportation as well.
10. LeapFrog Explorer Learning Game
Price: $68.99
Available at: Amazon
LeapForg Explorer is another great game for learning about marine life and food-chain. It features several mini-games, where players have to identify different types of sea creatures based on their specific characteristics and understand the food chain. As they progress with mini-games, they will earn fuel for the bus, which will take them to different locations: coral reef, continental shelf, open ocean, etc.
Students gain knowledge about water animals using tools like cameras and x-rays. Overall, the game is quite engaging, but certain stages are somehow less appealing than the others.
9. Bee Dance Game
Price: Free
Available at: Askabiologist
Bees are sophisticated, social creatures, which are important to maintain balance in the ecosystem. Over the years, biologists have learned a great many things about their anatomy and how they work as a team. One such interesting characteristic of bees is the waggle dance.
Wondering what waggle dance is? It’s a dance performed by honey bees after successful foraging with other bee members of the colony to direct them towards the flower and even water source. Personally, I was amazed by the level of sophistication bees employ in their daily chores.
8. Spore
Price: $49.99
Available at: Spore
Spore lets you be the creator. Here you have to create your own creature, and you have to guide it through the “five-stage” of evolution; cell creature, tribal, city, and space. In every stage, the player has to perform certain tasks. They have to collect resources like food and in-game currency to make purchases and vital upgrades to help your creature to thrive and even conquer other worlds.
Overall, this is a great game where kids explore the world of biological adaptation. Though it doesn’t exhibit the true nature of evolution, it does succeed in relaying many important concepts about biology and their quest for survival. One interesting feature of the game is its creation mode, where players can design their own in-game vehicles and buildings.
7. Doctor Know
Price: Free
Available at: Askabiologist
Doctor Know is an excellent and fun way for everyone to understand how new inventions in the bio-medical sector are changing the world of medicine. The game includes many state-of-the-art tools that will be available to doctors in the coming years, like advanced nanotechnologies and bioinformatics, etc. Here you can learn all about these tools by exploring diagnostic options and treatment and then by entering the realm of medicine.
6. Busy Bones
Available at: Askabiologist
Ever wonder what we would do without Bones? Bones are an integral part of our body. We need them to walk, talk, and do almost everything. That’s not all; bones are where blood cells are made, and they have healing properties. So, I guess not much then.
Coming to the point, Busy Bones is a virtual lab where you can explore the human bone using various in-game features. Players can dissect, peel apart bones to explore what’s inside and use a virtual microscope to observe the smallest of detail.
5. Cell Strike
Price: Free/ Paid
Available at: iTunes
Cell Strike lets young students learn about the basic working mechanism of our immune system. The game’s 3D environment simulates how our immune system reacts when our body is attacked by pathogens and bacteria. Players will take the role of the immune system, responsible for sending troops (response cells) to kill bacteria and heal wounds.
Players have to collect antigens with the response cells, which are used to create more advanced cells to fight more effectively against infections. Other types of cells that players can use against bacteria are Scouts, engineers, and killers, each carrying different tasks.
The game has quite a steep learning curve, and players need to act more vigorously against the bad guys, in this case, bacteria; it gets tougher with increasing levels.
4. Labster
Price: Free trials/ Paid
Available at: Labster
Labster is an advanced virtual lab simulation, which can significantly improve your understanding of various complex science topics. The game is perhaps best suited for high school students who are engaged in high-level science activities. It offers about 20 biotech simulations, where students can gain valuable knowledge about the lab actions.
Read: 20 Best Android Apps to Learn Science and Mathematics
3. Crazy Plant Shop
Price: $5.99/ per user
Available at: Steampowered
Crazy Plant Shop is a powerful simulation game that introduces the player to the concept of genetic inheritance. Here players or students take the role of a shop manager, who must breed a specific variety of planets in order to fulfill the customer needs. To get the right results, they have to mix and breed different plants using their own knowledge of different traits of plants and Punnett square.
For those who don’t know, Punnett square is a simple tool used to predict the outcome of a breeding experiment. To make it intense, money and space management issues are also included, which can be tackled by a suitable strategy.
2. Re-Mission 2
Available on: Browser-Based
Price: Free
Available at: Re-mission2
Do you want to learn how the immune system in our body works or what role white blood cells play in a fun and more engaging manner? If yes, then we have the perfect thing for you. Re-mission 2 is a pack of a handful arcade styled games to help players learn about medical sciences and few forms of the disease.
The games are explicitly designed to serve as a remedy to young patients suffering from cancer; however, kids can also pick up valuable knowledge. For example, in “Steam Cell Defender” (one of its games), the player controls a nanobot, which is responsible for deposing germ and bacteria by filling them into white blood cells.
Overall, the games are fun and follow the inquiry-driven learning process.
Read: 10 Fun Math Games That Will Make You Smarter
1. Niche – a genetics survival game
Available On: Linux, Windows, Mac
Price: Paid
Available at: Steampowered
Our final pick in this list is an intensive, turn-based strategy game, Niche, which heavily focuses on genetics. Here you will create your own group of animals through the process of gene manipulation, selective breeding, and all the real stuff. Player’s job is to keep their animal species alive at any cost, during drastic climate changes, against predators and viral diseases.
Read: 18 Best Physics Games For All Platforms
The game covers various aspects of genetics such as mutations, genetic drift, natural selection, and sexual selection. Lessons are carefully integrated into the gameplay as players work progressively to keep their animals alive. Niche features over 100 different genes and four biomes, each having its own prey and predators.
