Magnitude Museum: Game-based Learning for Nanosizes, Dimensions, and Nanotechnology Terminology

Magnitude Museum is an educational game that helps students develop a sense of scale and understand the terminology of nanotechnology. Educational and entertainment aspects of the game complement and reinforce each other. Story elements strengthen the learning value of the game and make it more fun. In Magnitude Museum, students explore a 3D virtual museum where each floor of the museum represents an order of magnitude of size in meters. Each floor contains exhibits of objects for that order of magnitude. The top floor (10 to the 26th power) has an exhibit that represents the entire universe and the lowest floors (10 to the minus 15th) have exhibits about subatomic particles. Puzzles in the game help students develop their abilities in estimating size in orders of magnitude, converting units, and using and defining nanotechnology terminology. The puzzles are generated dynamically and range from simple drill-style puzzles to more complicated story-based puzzles.