The Phylomon Project

Jan 27, 2010

The Phylomon Project

Wanna’ trade a Magic Golden Cantharellus for a Purple Entomophagous Bauvaria?

The Phylomon project, as I understand it, is an open source educational card game effort to produce something along the lines of Pokemon cards.

A Card Game that is Actually Educational

It might stretch the bounds of fair use, but I hope they won’t mind since I enthusiastically want to support and publicize this project, but here is more information from the project website:

Well, it was conservationist Andrew Balmford‘s letter (Why Conservationists Should Heed Pokemon, Science. 2002 Mar 29;295(5564):2367.), published in Science, that provided the proverbial kick in the pants. Essentially, he did this eye opening study to show that children as young as eight had the remarkable ability to identify and characterize upwards of 120 different Pokemon characters. However, when the same rubric was applied using photos of “real” flora and fauna (animals and plants that lived in the children’s back yards) the results were simply horrendous.

“Our findings carry two messages for conservationists. First, young children clearly have tremendous capacity for learning about creatures (whether natural or man-made), being able to at age 8 to identify nearly 80% of a sample drawn from 150 synthetic “species.” Second, it appears that conservationists are doing less well than the creators of Pokemon at inspiring interest in their subjects: During their primary school years, children apparently learn far more about Pokemon than about their native wildlife and enter secondary school being able to name less than 50% of common wildlife types. Evidence from elsewhere links loss of knowledge about the natural world to growing isolation from it. People care about what they know. With the world’s urban population rising by 160,000 people daily, conservationists need to reestablish children’s links with nature if they are to win over the hearts and minds of the next generation.”

It is an amazing idea. And here is my input (which I will pass on to Phylomon shortly): I think there should be a fungal component. My opening example was facetious of course since only real organisms are allowed.

Get Involved with Phylomon

Now assuming a nifty game is designed based on these cards, it makes perfect sense to be able to slap a Cordyceps militaris on an insect at an opportune time, or to lay a poisonous Amanita on an enemy who won’t back off (A. phalloides if you are really pissed, or perhaps only an A. muscaria if the intent is just to “send a message”), or to maybe ingest a little Ganoderma lucidum to gain some healing energy.

If you like this idea and agree that fungi are deserving of inclusion in Phylomon, head on over to their website and get the full scoop. There are FriendFeed and facebook links available there as well.

Here is what I added to the facebook discussion:

I propose that fungi should be included, and am willing to help if I can. You could slap a Cordyceps militaris on an insect foe, lay a poisonous Amanita phalloides on an attacker, or perhaps eat some Ganoderma lucidum to help heal after a close shave with a predator and regain strength faster than normal. Perhaps the critical role of fungi as decomposers could be incorporated into the game play as well. If this project is done right, it could see wide adoption in schools.

Here is my suggestion to the FriendFeed thread:

I posted a suggestion, on the facebook page, to include fungi. Given the goals of the project, that seems like a reasonable idea that could provide some interesting twists as far as gameplay goes as well. I am also publicizing the project to the mycological community tomorrow with a post at http://mycorant.com. I’d like to help if I can. Another card game that might provide some ideas for gameplay is Dino Hunt! by Steve Jackson Games. Just a thought.

Who’s in?