NASA Creates Video Game to Help Save Coral | Game Rant
Although video games are largely used for entertainment, scientists and educators have learned to harness the media for their own purposes. After the introduction of recent research efforts like Borderlands Science, NASA has decided to release its own game. Called NeMO-Net, this new app focuses on conservation efforts for coral reefs.
According to NeMO-Net's website, NASA's latest game allows players to identify different types of algae, coral and seagrass. The graphics are taken from footage and 3D models that NASA researchers from Silicon Valley's Ames Research Center. Playing through the game will not only teach players how to identify the different organisms, but it will also train NASA's supercomputer equipment to map the coral reefs independently. Player responses and machine learning will allow NASA to create a comprehensive map of the world's coral ecosystems and begin working on strategies to save these reefs before they go extinct.
After the U.S. Department of Education first identified video games as potential learning tools, NASA's use of NeMO-Net seems like another encouraging step forward for video games. Projects like NeMO-Net not only represent the potential that video games have as a scientific resource, but they also show how far technology has advanced.
Hopefully, NASA's supercomputers will allow humanity to make more groundbreaking discoveries, and work towards conserving the planet. Other resources like Minecraft's Uncensored Library point to the limitless possibilities that video games have in spreading knowledge to the ends of the Earth.
NeMO-Net is out now for iOS and Mac.
Source: NASA
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April 18, 2020
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