JASON Project games and the Operation Resilient Planet curriculum

Dr. Robert D. Ballard, the oceanographer who found the wreck of the Titanic, founded the JASON Project in 1989 after thousands of children wrote to him asking to join his expeditions. Technology let the project connect students with working scientists. National Geographic backed the effort, and its curricula drew on research from NASA, NOAA, the US Department of Energy and others.

Operation: Resilient Planet put school-age players in underwater ecosystems with tools such as remotely operated vehicles and Crittercams. Mission 1 took place in the Gulf of Mexico, where explosives were about to be placed on an oil platform and Ballard, who voiced himself, asked players to save sea turtles. In Mission 2, set at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, players acted as a NOAA marine ecologist operating the Hercules ROV, tracking hawksbill and leatherback turtles and running a biodiversity survey with a dichotomous key. Mission 4, in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, asked players to test a shark-infestation theory against data.

The game covered four endangered species and how human behavior affects their survival. Players then had to turn their data into scientific arguments, in a game that opposed water pollution, overfishing, shark culling and uncontrolled CO2 emissions.

Marjee Chmiel, then director of digital media for the JASON Project, said at the time that teachers described a strong return on the time spent on the games. She told of seventh graders who played in silence on the last full day of school and of students who fact-checked a claim about uninhabited atolls over a weekend. She also noted that games gave some students with learning disabilities a private space to explore and make mistakes. The same series included the games Coaster Creator and Storm Tracker, as well as Mini Labs.

JASON still operates as JASON Learning, which calls itself an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1989 by Ballard. Its site offers K-12 STEM curricula with online games and lesson plans.

The name Operation: Resilient Planet does not appear on the JASON page opened for this article. A curriculum called Resilient Planet: Ecology, Biodiversity, Invasive Species does, with five missions built from articles, activities, videos and games, and a Purchase Now button. Its first mission is listed for grades 4 to 12 and names the games Arctic Food Web and the Resilient Planet Vocab Challenge. Whether the 2010 game still runs as a stand-alone download is unconfirmed.