The National Biotechnology Information Facility is pleased to announce
the availability of Outbreak!, an interactive teaching tool for use by
students and science educators.
In Outbreak!, the player of the game assumes the role of a student
laboratory technician, a laboratory technician or medical technologist.
These roles correspond to the three levels of difficulty for the game.
The player is assigned a sample from a patient who has symptoms matching
those of a current illness outbreak. They are required to identify the
causative agent of the outbreak within a reasonable amount of game
time. To perform the identification, the player must choose the
appropriate culture media and biochemical tests needed to identify the
organism. The game will return results for the cultures and tests, and
the player must properly interpret the results to identify the microbe
present in the sample. As the game proceeds, the player will receive
updates from the laboratory supervisor and be able to read newspaper
articles about the progress of the outbreak. Upon identifying the
microbe causing the outbreak, a final report is generated by the
computer and provides a final score for the game, the name of the
organism causing the outbreak, the correct procedure for identifying the
organism and the procedure followed by the player.
Outbreak! is available at http://www.nbif.org/outbreak
--
Donald D. Bustamante, Project Manager
National Biotechnology Information Facility
Physical Science Laboratory
Box 30002, Dept. 3548
Las Cruces, New Mexico USA 88003
(505)-522-9209 FAX: (505)-522-9434
URL: http://www.nbif.org
