Playing games to help humans learn and survive

alt dek: in Whether it’s games or life, the quality of the preparation in the early stage determines the performance in the later stage.

16-year-old Owen Liebenberg and his friends have been busy searching for tools and healthy food resources. They are racing against time to build a wooden boat to take them away from the nightmarish island where they found themselves. This task is not simple. In each round, the ferocious beasts tried to stop them, and each one was harder to defeat than the previous one.This is a game called dross, It is another of contemporary survival video games.

The game is generated procedurally, so each pass is different. “Sometimes you get lucky right away, sometimes you don’t,” Liebenberger said, noting how important it is to perform well in the first few rounds so that you can survive the increasingly challenging beasts that are attacking day and night. Take longer. This is a kind of weird and lively fun, and it may also bring more to the player than they see at first glance. This is a clever combination of entertainment and strategy, but at a deeper level, playing games may help our overall evolutionary survival. Playing games can even enhance our cognitive, social and physical skills, bringing more advantages to our lives.

This idea has been studied in animals many Second-rate, Ranked first in the welfare list with physical strength and dexterity. We often see dolphins and otters playing in the waves, or seeing dogs wrestling with each other happily in the park. Physical activity keeps animals in good health, and helps them release stress and improve contact with each other.

Humans benefit in the same way. Sports keep us in shape while improving our hand-eye coordination, speed and strength.The game can also be used as a stress release, whether it is a short-term, fast-paced first-person shooter game Apex Legend Or use a deck of cards for a longer and quieter solitaire game.we know Games contribute to good health.

However, the bigger idea is this drama Can also be used as an exercise. For example, a cat is chasing a laser spot on the floor. Nathan Lents, a professor of biology at John Jay College, said that when a kitten plays, it can be a “warm up to do real things as an adult.” In the next few years, attacking toy mice for fun became prey for food. Likewise, the fun children get from wearing costumes and performing the roles they see around them may be an exercise in later life. “One of the greatest techniques of evolution is to link behaviors and stimuli that benefit us to our reward center, which drives us to participate in these experiences and reap the benefits they provide,” Lents said.

There are such good reasons, why not customize the school to take advantage of this concept? Anna Lorena FabregaOnce a teacher, he helped design a school that focused on the impact of games.She is now the chief evangelist synthesis, This school believes that children are born to learn through games and gamified as many learning principles as possible. The curriculum is problem-centric rather than tool-centric, and encourages students to “have autonomy in their choices and develop a sense of self-efficacy.” There is no loss, only winning or learning.