Designing a 3D Board Game on Human Internal Organs for Elementary Students

Abstract

The importance of learning about the human body and its internal organ is undeniable as it encourages an individual to care about their health and lifestyle. Elementary school students who are beginning to learn about the human internal organ are usually faced with the difficulty of comprehending vital information of each internal organ, such as its appearance, its position in the human body, and its role to ensure the livelihood of a human being. Facing with this difficulty, students usually could not fully understand the important roles these internal organs play, and this would be a challenge to students to pay attention in taking care of their own health. Several medical researches had ventured into enabling such learning through an experiential learning process via a board game, enabling learners to gain new knowledge of the human internal organ and understand vital roles of the internal organ, and the consequences if one does not take care of them. Enlighten by a “Human Body Model” toy manufactured by MegaHouse, this research attempted to improve the game playing process of the toy by introducing additional software and the usage of sensors in the toy, resulting in a 3D board game. Students’ interaction data were collected by the reader, and instantaneous feedbacks were provided to students accordingly. The results of the research show that the design of the 3D board game had effectively improved students’ learning experience and also their learning performance. Several decisions on the research design and noticeable observations during the research process were discussed in the chapter for the usage of teachers, educators, and future researchers.