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Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is teaming up with two law schools (and presumably a lot of twenty-something computer programmers) to create civics education video games. At the Games for Change conference yesterday, she announced a project to develop interactive on-line games that let students "engage in real legal issues"--and, in the process, learn how courts work.  

Justice O'Connor has lent some real heft to a movement that has been afoot for at least a few years: The "serious games" movement. The Federation of American Scientists, which has been working on their own educational video games for some time now, argues that such games are showing early promise as advanced learning technologies that improve student learning: They can motivate children to learn rigorous content both in and out of school while taking advantage of gaming platforms that are already in millions of households across the country.

The problem: Serious games are expensive to develop, mainline gaming companies are not exactly leaping into the market, and little foundation and government funding is available to support their widespread development.

Still, O'Connor's interest in such games is serious, indeed. At a time when ideologues in Congress and elsewhere are mounting "vicious attacks" on judges who do not support their political agendas, she apparently told conference participants, civic education can fortify voters against political attacks on the Constitutional separation of powers.

You can find a preview of her on-line game at www.ourcourts.org.  Our friends at Boardbuzz (NSBA) offer an interesting take on Justice O'Connor's plans.