Design of an educational videogame: How to integrate it in the classroom?

Abstract

Our Sun is an inexhaustible provider of energy for life on Earth. Its light can be harnessed and converted into electricity through photovoltaic technologies for the benefit of human life. However, the development of such technologies requires a variety of knowledge that includes areas of physics, chemistry, electrical and electronic engineering, materials science, and others. This represents a challenge in the teaching-learning process for teachers and students of related careers, as well as an obstacle in the motivation of both. Therefore, this article proposes the use of a simple, illustrative, interactive, and fun videogame that facilitates the learning of an abstract, multidisciplinary, and complex topic such as the fabrication and characterization of hybrid perovskite solar cells. In this videogame, students are free to fabricate solar cells. Each stage of construction requires decisions with a direct impact on the efficiency of the fabricated device, in other words, the proportion of solar energy converted into electricity. Also, each decision involves the understanding of basics concepts of chemistry and physics of materials, as well as semiconductors theory learned in the classroom. Thus, students can learn about solar cell fabrication in an interactive, efficient, and friendly way.

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