Blue Mars Science Center

TERC is creating a virtual Science Center with collaboration tools and challenge games set within Blue Mars, a brand new multiplayer virtual world developed by Avatar Reality Incorporated. The Blue Mars virtual world is the first virtual world to be rendered in high definition and is designed to represent 150 years in the future when Mars has been terraformed to make it habitable for humans. TERC has partnered with Virtual Space Entertainment (VSE) to capture the enthusiasm that is enticing a rapidly growing public to play and explore virtual environments and steer them towards productive scientific collaboration.

The first game that TERC is designing for the Blue Mars Science Center is a wildlife tracking activity that allows users to discover and follow the movement of apes and other wildlife, as well as human ancestors, in archeological sites on the outskirts of New Venice. Users will upload their tracking information into the database in the Science Center and will work with others to visualize the collective set of data, working together in analysis and interpretation about animal behavior and the evolution of humans. The human evolution game will use the resources and expertise of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) as well as other lead scientists in fields of paleontology and anthropology.

Future games under design include a mars-mapping game where visitors will hunt for epoch2009 Mars imagery around the virtual world. By uploading and sharing their finds with others, they will create a growing map of the pre-terraformed Martian surface corresponding to their location on Blue Mars so that together they can pinpoint their current location on Mars. Other games will take advantage of the terraformed environment to support investigation of climate sustainability. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation's Informal Science Education (ISE) program.