loot pursuit – DiG-iT! Games

Articles Tagged with: loot pursuit

Can Spring Break be gasp educational?

It’s the bright spot at the end of a long, gray winter for millions of Americans – Spring Break. If you are looking for sunshine and clear, blue water then look no further than the Caribbean coast of Mexico. Cancun, Riviera Maya, and Tulum all are very popular locations for an amazing getaway. What most people don’t know is that this area is also incredibly rich in history and culture and offers a chance to explore an ancient civilization. Get a head start on that exploration by playing our games featuring ancient Maya!

While the area around Cancun is spotted with ancient sites, the biggest and most well known is Chichen Itza. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to the massive Maya pyramid known as El Castillo. You can wander the well-preserved massive complex of temples and ball courts and even catch a light and sound show every night. There are many tour companies and options to visit Chichen Itza and typically you can add in another site (Tulum, Coba, Ek Balam) . Be prepared as these tours are typically all-day affairs, but well worth it! Some of them will include tour guides, but some will not.

There is also a little-known site right in the Hotel Zone of Cancun called “El Rey”. The entry fee is a whopping 50 pesos (about $2.50 USD) and you can climb and explore all of the ruins. You can also pay about $5 for a guide to show you around and explain the details. This is a great option if you don’t have the time or money to go to a bigger site.

If you decide that this is a the right opportunity for you and your family, consider preparing your kids to see these sites and be even more engaged. Currently, Dig-It Games has 3 games about the ancient Maya: Mayan Mysteries, Excavate!, and Loot Pursuit: Maya. All of these games will let children explore the sites and artifacts. This way, they will have some knowledge of Maya traditions and the location even before setting foot at the site.

Allow your child to be the expert and guide you through the sites. The amazing part of game-based learning is they won’t even realize how much information they are acquiring. They’ll be so excited to show you what they learned! Check out our game store for more.

Math Awareness Month

Remember Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? How about Who Wants to be a Mathematician? The competition, in which students compete for scholarship money, is just one of the events kicking off this April for Mathematics Awareness Month.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan inaugurated Mathematics Awareness Week to encourage a greater appreciation and understanding of math. “It is appropriate,” he stated in his opening declaration, “that all Americans be reminded of the importance of this basic branch of science to our daily lives.”

$Math-Signs$

Over time, the tribute shifted from centralized national events to local, state, and regional activities. In 1999, the week-long event became Mathematics Awareness Month. The number and quality of events grow by the year, and with the increased focus on STEM education, Math Awareness Month is more significant than ever.

At Dig-It, we enthusiastically support Mathematics Awareness Month’s goal to grow an appreciation of math as a field of study, and to promote math as intriguing, exciting, and fun. If you think math is boring, baffling, or intimidating, you are exactly the kind of person Mathematics Awareness Month wants to reach. Instead of something daunting, we want math to be seen as something accessible—an irreplaceable part of people’s everyday lives and careers.

This year’s theme is “The Future of Prediction,” exploring how data and statistics help with everyday complex systems like the Internet and power grids and how data can drive innovation and insight into the future.

Mathematics Awareness Month is celebrated all over the country, but here are some events local to Dig-It’s studio for you to explore.

The American Mathematical Society’s Who Wants to Be a Mathematician? competition comes to Washington D.C. on April 16.
Browse plenty of math-related activities and exhibits at the USA Science and Engineering Festival, also hosted in Washington D.C. this year.
Visit www.mathaware.org to find outreach events and activities all over the country and read essays on this year’s theme.
Don’t forget to take a look at Dig-It’s math-based games! Our Loot Pursuit Early America game is being released this month. Check out the game trailer below.

You can keep up with what’s happening on the Mathematics Awareness Month Facebook page, follow along on Twitter, and check with local school systems and universities to celebrate math close to home. We will be featuring our math games from game developers throughout the month.

Happy math month!

Archaeology Awareness Month

“What did a Mayan kid my age wear every day?”

“How does math work without the number system I’m used to?”

“How different would my life have been if I was a settler in early America?”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to have a model of a real archaeological artifact?”

“Are there active archaeological dig sites in my state?”

April is the perfect time to ask all of these questions—and get answers! It’s Archaeology Month in Dig-It’s home state of Maryland, and we’re getting ready for a statewide celebration of our rich archeological heritage. There are plenty of opportunities for the public to take part in hands-on, educational, and—most importantly—fun events to learn more about archaeology as a whole, and what it means to our state.

From the first settlement in Maryland at St. Mary’s City to Civil War sites like Lafayette Square in Baltimore City, to the Chesapeake Bay region’s earliest Native American human settlements, our state has a rich tradition of history to celebrate.

Flint Arrowheads

So why is archeology so appealing? And what makes it such a powerful teaching tool? The Society for American Archeology (SAA) says on their website that “it captures our imagination, encourages our curiosity, and stimulates our sense of wonder. It is a great teaching tool that excites and motivates students, and it’s fun!” It’s tempting to think archeology belongs only in history class, but in reality it enriches all areas of study—language arts, social studies, science, even math! And it’s rewarding to more than just students. Maryland’s archaeology month has something for all ages, from academic lectures to family fun days.

Here are a few ideas for how to celebrate Archaeology Month in Maryland.

• Discovering Archaeology Day at the Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum invites families to spend the day on April 16 exploring on-site exhibits, learning from experts, and identify personal artifacts.
• Historic St. Mary’s City hosts a Maryland Archaeology Month Lecture, “A Brief History of Historical Archaeology in Maryland’s First Capital,” on April 21.
• Create your own event! Find and visit archaeological sites and programs all over the state through resources like The Council for Maryland Archeology and The Archaeological Society of Maryland.
• Visit Josiah Henson Park in Bethesda, Maryland featured by our friends at Archaeology in the Community and learn more about their local efforts.
• Venture out of Maryland and into the ancient world of the Romans and the Mayans with Dig-It’s archaeology games.
• Not from Maryland? Visit the Society for American Archaeology to find out when archaeology month happens in your state.

Dig-It is celebrating by traveling to this year’s annual SAA conference in Orlando, where we will be unveiling a new early-American archeology game. We can’t wait to spend time with the archeology community, advancing our knowledge and sharing our work. Until then, you can get a sneak peak in our video trailer below.

Happy Archaeology Month!

Middle Level Educators + Games = Fun

As many middle school teachers can agree, students in grades 5-9 require a very different approach for instruction compared to upper elementary or high school levels. Middle level educators know that kids at that age need something different in the classroom to keep them engaged and excited about learning.

That’s why game-based learning (GBL) can improve student academic success when incorporated correctly into the classroom. Earlier this month, we headed to Columbus, OH for AMLE 2015, a gathering where middle level educators from all over the country can talk about best practices in the classroom. Suzi led a Speed Learning session with three rotations to talk to teachers about why GBL works, how they can use games in the classroom, and where to find well-built games that keeps the student experience in mind during development.

Here are five important takeaways from that presentation:

Games should have defined learning outcomes in order to create a meaningful learning experience for the student. In other words, teachers should be able to ask, “What is my student working towards in this game?” and get a detailed response. For example, in Loot Pursuit: Pompeii, the goal of the game is to provide review of Common Core-aligned math problems, but also to give exposure to the ancient Roman culture through artifact collection.

Electronic games combine visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning at all times. Through the combination of graphics, audio and movement into a coherent whole, players are encouraged to strengthen weaker skills, while taking advantage of their proficiencies.

Story-based games are immersive and interactive, helping to “hide” the learning. It’s invisible to the students, but they are practicing higher-order thinking and building critical thinking skills during gameplay. These games are valuable because they pull the learner into the game and motivate them to continue to reach the story’s conclusion.

Many games that provide built-in, instantaneous feedback offer students progressive learning and require players to master a topic before moving forward. This places an emphasis on character traits like persistence and ownership of the learning material. Because this feedback is not communicated to a student’s peers, it acts as a form of self-assessment and encourages experimentation, trial and error, and failure.

Look for educational games on websites like Graphite, which provide detailed reviews and alignment to standards. Teachers are even able to search by standard on these sites and incorporate a short mini-game into their lessons. Alternatively, teachers may find long-form games for use (like Mayan Mysteries), which can stand on their own rather than being supplemental.

We’ll be participating in the Game-Based Learning Summit at FETC 2016 on January 12! Be sure to save the date and stop by in Orlando, or follow along on our Twitter account (@DigItGames) for more tips and tricks involving GBL.