But, if the inquiry activities used currently in education are
unable to foster the right attitudes toward science, what
can? Games, potentially. Despite dismissals as ‘‘torpid’’
and inviting ‘‘inert reception’’ (Solomon 2004) in some
mainstream press, videogame technologies may be one
viable alternative—not to the role of teachers and classrooms
in learning science, but rather to textbooks and
science labs as educational experiences about the inquiry
process. Recent studies indicate that the intellectual activities
that constitute successful gameplay are nontrivial,
including the construction of new identities (Gee 2003;
Steinkuehler 2006b), collaborative problem solving (Squire
2005; Steinkuehler 2006a; cf. Nasir 2005), literacy practices
that exceed our national standards (Steinkuehler 2007,
2008a), systemic thinking (Squire 2003), and, as one might
expect, computer literacy (Hayes and Games in press;
Steinkuehler and Johnson, 2007, unpublished manuscript).
Games, however, are more than just the sum of their
intellectual practices (as important as those may be); they
are, in fact, simulated worlds: