Try the worksheet here.

Welcome to the Game Design Challenge!

Arludo’s Game Design Challenge will teach your students how to design a video game, including how to pick a scientific topic or question, how to create the game mechanics (or rules) for how the game will work, designing art and sounds and finally how to pitch your game design concept to an audience.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length and will cover:

● Introduction to the Game Design Challenge – 5 mins
● Get to know your Game Design Challenge team – 10 mins
● Play an Arludo game – 20 mins
● Generate ideas for science topics – 10 mins
● Compare and select the final idea – 10 mins
● Summary – 5 mins

Teams that wish to enter the nationwide Game Design Challenge will be able to use the work generated in the Game Design Challenge worksheets for their submissions. Entries for the nationwide competition must be received by Friday, 1 September 2023.

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Welcome to Lesson 2 of the Game Design Challenge!

In this lesson students will start thinking and reflecting on what type of game they are designing. Is it a games that helps people understand a science concept or is it a game that conducts an experiment?

By the end of the lesson they will have created an overview of what their game is about (including the genre) and how the game could be played.

They will also choose what will be measured in the game (the data it collects) and think about how that ties in with their science topic as well as how it will affect gameplay.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length and will cover:

● Introduction – 3 mins
● Video and Vocabulary – 7 mins
● Play an Arludo game – 15 mins
● What games measure – 10 mins
● What their game will measure – 10 mins
● Summary and create their first slide – 15 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Welcome to Lesson 3 of the Game Design Challenge!

In this lesson students will explore the ways that players interact with games, also known as ‘game mechanics’.

By the end of the lesson they will have summarised the mechanics that will be used in their game, the core problem of the game and will have written an ‘elevator pitch’ to promote their game.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length and will cover:

• Introduction – 3 mins
• Video & Vocabulary – 7 mins
• Play an Arludo game – 15 mins
• Determine your game’s core problem and game mechanics – 15 mins
• Summarise your game mechanics – 10 mins
• Write a pitch for your game – 10 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Welcome to Lesson 4 of the Game Design Challenge!

In this lesson students will create the characters of their game, describe how they look and move, how the game will sound and feel as well as design the overall world that players will interact with.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length and will cover:

• Introduction – 3 mins
• Video & Vocabulary – 7 mins
• Play an Arludo game – 10 mins
• Show the characters and backgrounds that will be used in your game – 15 mins
• Create a scene using visual assets – 15 mins
• Decide what the game should look and feel like – 10 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Why do animals signal to each other in different ways? For example, birds sing to impress each other, crabs wave their claws in front of females, and Siamese fighting fish build bubble nests to impress their mates.

In this lesson, we’ll use the Arludo app ‘Spinder’ to explore animal signals and why different signals are used by different animals in different environments. You’ll also be introduced to Australia’s peacock spider – a tiny little spider that sings and dances to impress it’s mate. And these spiders are only found in Australia!

Students will learn how to explore bar graphs and how recognise and compare graphs with different axes

This lesson is approximately 1 hour in length.

Students will:
● Learn about how animals communicate – 15 mins
● Use an Arludo app to learn about communication – 10 mins
● Try and create the ultimate peacock spider – 5 mins
● Explore the data that you collected with others – 15 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 15 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Take a look at all the species of parrots we have in Australia. Or the different species of spiders or beetles. Have you ever wondered why there are so many different species that look really similar?

In this lesson, students will use the Arludo app ‘Cha Cha Island’ and try to dance their way to impressing a mate. They’ll use rhythm and sounds to improve their luck. While dancing, they’ll learn how differences in what mates are looking for will affect how populations change over time, and how this can lead to new species.

Students will learn to explore bar graphs and scatter plots. They will also learn how to interpret graphs with different axes.

This lesson is approximately 1 hour in length.

Students will:
● Learn about how that choosiness can affect how animals look – 5 mins
● Learn about how animals try and impress potential mates – 15 mins
● Use an Arludo app to become an amazing dancer – 10 mins
● Explore the data that you collected with others – 15 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 15 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

All the organisms in the world are connected through an intricate web of interactions. But some species have a relatively more important part in that interaction than others. And sometimes the interactions you think are simple, may be much more complex.

In this lesson, students will learn about food webs and the interconnectivity between different groups. They will learn the different roles that organisms play and how each part has its own importance. They will get the opportunity to explore these connections by taking the role of a wildlife biologist – that has a huge quokka that helps maintain the peace!

Students will learn about ecosystems and the role that wildlife biologists play in conservation.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length

Students will:
● Learn how food webs work – 10 mins
● Learn about endangered species and conservation – 10 mins
● Learn about the impact of native and non-native species on food webs – 10 mins
● Use the Arludo App to start a Quokkapocalypse and save some threatened species – 20 mins
● Make predictions about how different animals impact food webs – 10 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Being a parent is hard (just ask any parent!). Parenting requires keeping offspring safe and also ensuring they have enough to eat so they grow up big and strong. But searching for food is a risky behaviour for parents – so how do they manage all of these things at once?

In this lesson, students will learn all about managing different risks and what that means for how they and their offspring survive. They’ll us the Arludo app ‘Hungry Birds’ to become a parent bird trying to raise four nestlings. They’ll have to navigate different environments to try and bring back food for their young.

Students will learn how to read bar graphs, and scatter plots, and how to use different graphs to tell a story about what is happening.

This lesson is approximately 1 hour in length.

Students will:
● Learn about trade-offs (decisions parents make about their offspring and themselves to survive) – 5 mins
● Learn about the challenges that parents face when hunting – 10 mins
● Use an Arludo app to become a parent bird – 15 mins
● Explore the data that you collected with others – 15 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 15 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

How do animals survive in a hostile world where everything is trying to eat them? And for the animals that are doing the eating, how do they learn when something is safe to eat?

In this lesson, students will use the Arludo app ‘Xenon Crowe’ to become a Crowe on the planet Xenon. They will have to try and survive for as long as they can. As they play, they will encounter different organisms that they can eat – some safe and others not. In this way, students will learn how animals learn, and how scientists can explore how animals try to protect themselves.

Students will also learn how to explore bar graphs and learn to look for correlations between different bar graphs.

This lesson is approximately 1 hour in length.

Students will:
● Learn about what predators and prey are – 5 mins
● Learn about the different ways predators and prey interact – 15 mins
● Use an Arludo app to become a Crowe from planet Xenon – 10 mins
● Explore the data that you collected with others – 15 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 15 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Have you ever tried to grow a garden – it’s tough! There are a lot of pests that want to eat the same food that we do. So why are farmers so successful?

In this lesson, students take the role of Detective Kookaburra and meet friends while trying to solve a mystery to understand the things that can affect the crops we grow. You’ll learn about how scientists help farmers grow crops and why that’s important. You’ll meet lots of characters along the way and also learn a little about genetics.

Students will use the knowledge they’ve learned to apply it to planning exercises and make predictions about future crops.

This lesson is about 55 minutes in length

Students will:
● Learn about wheat and its important characteristics – 10 mins
● Meet a practicing wheat scientist and learn about what they do – 5 mins
● Learn about diseases that impact upon wheat production – 10 mins
● Learn about old and new technologies being used to grow wheat into the future – 5 mins
● Use an Arludo app to help Detective Kookaburra solve a mystery – 25 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Our bodies protect us from all the different things that can make us sick. But have you ever thought about how they do that? How do our bodies recognise what is bad for us?

In this lesson, you’ll explore how our bodies learn to fight the pathogens in our bodies. You’ll also learn about how vaccines help our bodies learn more quickly. This way, our bodies can prepare itself for when it’s really in trouble.

Students will also learn how to explore time-series graphs and make inferences from them.

This lesson is about 35 minutes in length

Students will:
● Learn what a microorganism is – 5 mins
● Learn what a vaccine is and how it protects you from infection – 15 mins
● Interpret data from vaccine programs around the world – 5 mins
● Make conclusions from vaccine data – 5 mins
● Use your vaccine knowledge to explain COVID vaccines – 5 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

How do scientists come to conclusions? And what role do observations play in determining the experiments that scientists create?

Using Augmented Reality birds, students will sharpen their science skills as they learn to make predictions, use observations to modify these predictions, and come to conclusions. This whole lesson focuses on the aspects in science that are often least explored in the classroom – hypothesis testing.

Students will learn to interpret and make conclusions from bar graphs.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length

Students will:
● Use an Arludo app to bring Augmented Reality Birds to life – 10 mins
● Practice using information to make decisions – 20 mins
● Learn about how observations are used to create predictions – 10 mins
● Explore data you collected with others – 10 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 10 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

All animals compete against one another for access to resources they need to survive and reproduce. And although animal competitions can be very costly because individuals can become injured or even die, animals have found a way to reduce those costs.

In this lesson, students will learn all about how animals signal their fighting ability to each other and what that means for contests. Students will use Augmented Reality crabs to design and run their own experiment, and will gain feedback from scientists about their experimental design. They will then have the opportunity to collect data and complete their experiment.

Students will learn skills associated with experimental design and learn to read bar graphs and make conclusions from them.

This lesson is about 1 hour in length

Students will:
● Learn why animals fight – 5 mins
● Use an Arludo app to bring Augmented Reality crabs to life – 5 mins
● Design an experiment and get feedback from a scientist – 5 mins
● Explore the data that you collected with others – 5 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 25 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links

Try the worksheet here.

Why do we get sick every flu season? Does it feel like mosquitoes are getting faster? These questions deal with the concept of evolution – why organisms change over time.

In this lesson, students will use the Arludo app ‘Eat Prey Live’ to explore why organisms change. They’ll be able to create a population of dots that has different traits, and then see what happens when they squash them. They’ll be able to understand what’s going on because they’ll be able to see evolution happen before their very eyes!

Students will learn how to explore frequency distributions and how to interpret them.

This lesson is approximately 1 hour in length.

Students will:
● Learn about how individuals that survive can lead to changes in a population – 10 mins
● Learn about what is needed for a population to change – 10 mins
● Use an Arludo app to become a predator that loves to eat dots – 10 mins
● Explore the data that you collected with others – 15 mins
● Make conclusions from the data you collected – 15 mins

Curriculum & Syllabus links