Lessons lurk in role-playing game

Eighth-grader Jeff Taylor can dress up as a jock, a ski bum, a slacker, or a prom date as he makes his way through the virtual world of Taiga. He can dive into the water for a swim, build a house, and figure out what's killing the fish in a nearby river.

Taylor doesn't seem to mind that the Quest Atlantis video game is educational.

``It's kind of cool," he says as he shows off his ``avatar" (the video character that he can dress up and move around). ``It's kind of like SimCity. "

Such role-playing video games could be coming soon to a school near you.

Taylor, 13, is one of about 100 eighth-graders at the McDevitt Middle School in Waltham who are learning about the environment through the game as part of earth science class.

Some of the students said they like it so much they are playing the game on their own time.

Nick Sturgeon said he and a friend spent more than seven hours immersed in the game on a recent weekend.

``It's a very fun, interesting game that helps us learn a lot," he said in an e-mail. ``We hate doing homework."

Research has found that the average eighth-grade boy plays video games about 23 hours a week, and the average girl plays about 12 hours, more than they watch television, according to Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of science education and technology at Boston College.

Barnett helped develop Quest Atlantis as a doctoral student at Indiana University and brought it with him to BC in 2003. It is used in about 200 schools around the world, including seven in the Boston area, mostly in the city, according to Barnett, who is pushing to get the game into more classrooms.

He said he hopes to add the program this fall to all sixth-grade classes in Waltham as well as some eighth-grade classes in Framingham, with Natick not too far behind.

``The coolest thing is, kids are having fun with it," said Barnett, 34, who acknowledged that he can be found playing video games at home to relax. ``If you can get kids excited about learning, then the learning will take care of itself."

Youngsters naturally have curiosity and problem-solving skills, he said, and the game just helps tap into their abilities.

Girls seem to like the game as much as boys, which was not a given, Barnett said, since boys tend to have more interest in video games.

And the game seems to do well even with hard-to-reach students. At Garfield Elementary School in Brighton, he said, a student who hadn't turned in any assignments since the start of school in September completed every task in Quest Atlantis after it was introduced in March.

In the earth science class at the McDevitt school in Waltham recently, students were playing a version of Quest Atlantis that contains lessons on water pollution.

The eighth-graders maneuvered their characters through the fantasy world created by the game, taking water samples and testing them, for example, to try to figure out why the fish in the river were dying. A chat feature allowed them to talk to each other and to students around the country who are also using the program.

Sociability is built into the game, Barnett said, with students working in teams and helping each other gather the data necessary to complete tasks.

There are also extra features designed to be fun. Students can build a structure inside the virtual world for other students to see and admire, or collect credits that allow them to ``buy" various prizes, such as electronic trading cards.

Other quests ready or in the works will teach students about nutrition, endangered species, and cell life, Barnett said.

He said he has been working to get Quest Atlantis into schools with ethnically diverse populations because minority students, in particular, ``often have been either left behind or do not consider themselves as scientists."

A similar role-playing game developed at Harvard University and Arizona State University has been used in about 50 schools nationally and in Boston but not yet in the western suburbs.

Chris Dede , the Timothy E. Wirth professor in learning technologies at Harvard, leads the project. One of the game's most important accomplishments, he said, has been its ability to motivate students.

``Because of the design, students who aren't doing well academically do almost as well as students who are getting A's and B's," Dede said. ``In contrast to a lot of technologies that work well but widen the gap, this is a curriculum that we found narrows the gap."

Video games often are criticized for encouraging youths to be less physically active. Shelley Waters Boots, vice president for policy and programs at Parents' Action for Children , an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said educational video games can be a good influence.

The key, she said, is to keep everything in balance and make sure children also are getting off the couch and out of the computer chair.

``It can't be a substitute for what we also know makes a good, healthy, and whole child," she said.

In the Waltham classroom, the students agreed Quest Atlantis is much better than book work. And their teacher, Heidi Sardina, was also was impressed.

As the class worked intently on the game, she said with near disbelief: ``Have you ever seen eighth-grade kids this much on task -- in June?"

Lisa Kocian can be reached at 508-820-4231 or by e-mail at lkocian@globe.com.