Excavation!: Electronic Gaming and Education

UCLA College of Letters and Science, Humanities Division

Primary contact

John Lynch
Graduate Student in Assyriology
Research Assistant, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
(310)447-4538
jlynch@humnet.ucla.edu

Project URL

www.humnet.ucla.edu/itc/johnitc/excavation/Game_Play.html
www.humnet.ucla.edu/itc/johnitc/excavation/Game_Editor.html

Project description

Excavation!, a computer game that simulates archaeological digs, combines education and adventure to help students learn about ancient history.  Rather than replacing educators, Excavation! complements standard history curricula and empowers students whose natural learning styles are not served by the traditional reading-and-lecture model of education.  Its engaging storyline holds students’ interest, while its simple interface and game mechanisms reinforce the process of historical and scientific investigation.  Content creation is a snap with its easy-to-use level editor, enabling instructors and scholars to expand existing material or develop new material at their leisure.  Finally, unlike many other educational game prototypes, whose advanced 3D graphics require expensive computer hardware out of the reach of most schools, Excavation! was written using Adobe Flash and can therefore be played on virtually any computer with a web-browser, without complicated installations or add-ons.

Special thanks to UCLA’s Center for Digital Humanities, especially Zoe Borovsky and Annelie Chapman, and Shawn Higgins and Vergil Castelo, for their technical support.

Project video