Freshman+Ender's+Game+Project

Choices and Decisions:

The Ender's Game Project consists of the following activities that ACE Students will do within their freshman core classes.

Ender's Game is a novel about Ender Wiggin, who is a young person chosen by his government to participate in war games in preparation for battle against alien invaders. Students will read the novel in English class and participate in a series of projects related to it throughout the year. The purpose of the project is to teach various research skills students can use later in their own independent research projects.

1. The Yeast Experiment- "What Affects the Population Growth?" In Biology class, the students are expected to **perform a laboratory experiment** where they will research what conditions affect the survival and reproduction of organisms, like yeast. They will test which variable will encourage the growth of yeast, collect and analyze data and draw a conclusion using the data collected. The data will also be analyzed in their math classes. At the end of the experiment, a laboratory report will be turned in and graded.

2. The Game Geometry students **design a game** that resembles a billiard game. Given the dimensions of the pool table and positions of obstacles on the table, students have to find a path of a cue ball that moves from the given starting point to the assigned pocket by calculating angles. The cue ball has to bounce off each obstacle and the boarder of the table at least once. Students have to sketch a pool table and positions of the obstacles on a piece of paper (using a proper scale factor), then draw the ball's path by calculating angles of incidence and reflection. Students test their model on a real table.

A possible modification of the game is to find the fewest number of ricochets of a cue ball moving from the starting point to the assigned pocket by changing positions of the obstacles. The cue ball has to bounce off each obstacle and the boarder of the table at least once. The student who designs this type of the game is Ender.

3. The Choice In English classes students will **read the novel** and then **write a research paper** based on one of the following six themes: Nature vs. Nurture Bullying The Effects of Video Games Sibling Rivalries/Birth Order effects Validity of Testing Population Control