Through the board game, they seek to enhance science education in schools

“Exploring Questions: The First Board Game to Teach and Strengthen the Ability to Form Researchable Questions,” by Carolina Izker, a PUCV Master’s Student in Experimental Science Education, was a National Best Project in the Agency’s 12th Research Assessment (VIU) 2022 competition. National Research and Development (ANID).

Skill development in children is enhanced with the use of certain board games, as they work on elements such as focus, imagination, and teamwork. In the same way, it puts them in situations where they have to make decisions and work on developing different strategies to achieve the goals.
Carolina Ezquer, a marine biologist and currently studying a Master of Science Education degree at PUCV, received the Fondef VIU Project, “Exploring Questions: The First Board Game to Teach and Strengthen the Ability to Form Searchable Questions.”
The game is designed for people between the ages of 12 and 14, although it could be expanded to college students in the future.
How did this idea arise?
“He was born out of need. Asking questions is an innate thing, however, it is a skill that is not worked out and thus fades as we progress. Over time we ask ourselves less and less things, we question fewer things. The result is a world full of fake news and alternative beliefs that are harmful to society. In science, asking questions is fundamental, but to make those questions good, we must learn how to build them and work on that ability.”
What is the game about?
Explore Questions is an educational board game where players have to take on the role of a researcher in order to ask themselves questions about the world around them. The team that successfully improves their research question wins its turn, finally getting a question that is good enough and interesting enough to be investigated.”
How do children learn through play?
“Game is an innate activity that leads us to acquire many lessons throughout our lives. In this playful environment, an imaginative space is provided where we can test and practice situations and skills of all kinds in a safe manner, without consequences in real life. Therefore, by playing with others, we learn to mingle Social, knowing our limits, testing possibilities and pretending to be characters to see “what it would be like.”
In “Explore Questions” boys and girls are invited to become researchers and researchers and acquire scientific skills in an easy, entertaining and social way.
This type of project seeks to improve children’s ability to ask questions, develop the ability to ask more and better questions about the world around them and enhance social skills and logical thinking.