A report published in Nature last Thursday, August 4, describes the success of the computer game Foldit, which is designed to encourage people to contribute to research on protein folding and at the same time have fun. (The Nature article is restricted to those with subscriptions, but a layman’s description is here.) The success of this computer game in aiding what by all accounts is a very complicated area of research raises a couple of interesting points.

First, there are things that people do much better than computers. When a situation required out-of-the-box thinking, quick changes in strategy, or a long-term perspective, people were more successful than supercomputers. Given the ubiquity of data on the Web and the ease with which information can be found, these are exactly the qualities that education should be fostering in children. Unfortunately we educators often seem mired in memorization rather than harbingers of a new emphasis on process and application of knowledge. The success of people in aiding research on protein folding through a computer game should encourage us to redouble our efforts to revise and enhance the ways we encourage students to learn.

Second, if a computer game can contribute to research in protein folding, what might computer games be able to contribute to the educational process? Some advances have been made in using games to help students learn, but much more is possible. Perhaps we educators need to enlist the services of the computer scientists, or their colleagues, who devised Foldit to create new games that simulate other processes that we want students to explore. Although the article does not address this issue, I am confident that those who participated in the Foldit game/research learned a good deal ab0ut protein folding in the process. Why not apply this to other situations?

Finally, Foldit is a means for taking the energy and enthusiasm that people apply to computer games and harnessing that energy in a productive way that enhances science and society. Applying the same kind of thinking to enhancing learning would be a great thing to do.

Simulations Nab Protein-folding Mistakes