SCIENCE ON THE CARDS: A Game for Biologists and Kids Alike Ariel Marcy
Fulbright offered me a scholarship right when I was staring down a career crossroads. In 2014, I was 3 years out of university and I had just wrapped up a successful Kickstarter campaign for an educational board game called Go Extinct! The game represented my love of biology, specifically evolution, as well as my pursuits in teaching and graphic design.
Indeed, the game’s strategy organically taught players how to read evolutionary trees, a difficult concept to learn from a textbook. Making fun science games and opening a new portal into STEM for kids felt like my calling. But, I also heard the siren song from science. Here was the crossroads: research or game design.
48 The Fulbright, with its research and public outreach components, allowed me to explore both at the same time and – spoiler alert – I realized it wasn’t a one or the other choice. The first thing I did when I started my PhD in Australia? Why, made a game to acquaint myself with my new study system: the surprisingly diverse, cuddly, and unique rodents native to Australia. The cards were inspired by those from Go Extinct! but there was more information on them so I could compare stats at a glance. I basically built my study group like a card trading game! Ariel's custom playing cards feature beautiful illustrations from 19th century natural history artists, John and Elizabeth Gould
