The National Science Foundation wants scientists to reach beyond the laboratory to help inform the public about their research and discoveries. NSF has inspired scientists to create new educational media including comics and edu-tainment games to inform the public.
Want to know more about the bald-faced hornet nests hanging in trees in the fall? Want to challenge your knowledge of their biology? At the American Museum of Natural History site under Wonderful World of Wasps, a game allows you can be a queen wasp who must make the correct decisions to survive the summer. Make a bad decision and you go the way of the ‘unfit’. The game is more forgiving than nature, and allows you to learn from mistakes and chart another course. By placing the player in the role of wasp, it forces the player to view the world from the wasps perspective and in the process diminish fear and increase understanding of wasps.
For your Sunday morning comics fix, read the brief intro and Play: ‘You Are The Queen’.
Living With Insects Blog 