Agenda

I believe it is one of the great failures of our society that it has become socially acceptable to proudly proclaim one's own incompetence in mathematics or science. It would be absurd to hear someone similarly declaring that they simply don't read very well or don't think that reading is applicable to life or bragging about how they've never read a book. Yet, it is common place to hear someone use a phrase like "I just never got math" or "what's the point, you never use it once your out of school." It is precisely this attitude that guarantees critical thinking and logical thinking stay out of mainstream society and trapped in schools. I feel personally robbed of my education from hearing adults in my life say things like "I never did well in math either". I took that and used it as an excuse to limp along in mathmatics and even when I began to think of it as important I was never quite able to recover.

My agenda is to educate students at a relatively low mathematical level in simple math. I feel that by helping kids form a strong basis in the lower grades it will provide a much better launching platform for them to enter into Jr. High and High School where I believe negative attitudes about math are most common.

Using advanced mathematical concepts like Calculus or Linear Algebra in a game scenario is beyond me, but I can see how the foundation of math from simple addition and subtraction through geometry and possibly algebra could be incorporated fairly organically. I personally like game where you build and empire through abstract data, like wealth or population, but I also very much enjoy games where you build something more literally like building in the Sims series or Minecraft.

I feel like combining these into a game about construction for children would open the door for a lot of mathematics into the gameplay. The first part of the game would be managing a very simple business which consisted of a budget. Income and Expenses woudl have to be maintained to maintain a positive cache flow. This, however, would likely be a fairly small portion of the game.

The main game play would involve building structures from simple blueprints.  The building might call for 10 5foot pieces of wood. The Player would then have to order a similar amount of wood. On a particularly easy level there might be 5 foot pieces available for purchase, but as the player advances they would have to find the best deals by buying varying lengths and cutting them to meet specifications.