Coming as the Australian National Maritime Museum’s third instalment of games, Wreck Seeker sends players on a hunt for some of Australia’s most prized shipwrecks scattered across Australian waters.
The latest game, designed for middle-school students (10-15 year-olds), serves as not only a fun experience for children but an equally enriching one that addresses conversations on historical enquiry, chronology, and source analysis. Teachers of Years 5, 6, 7 up to Year 10 have been encouraged to use the program as a learning platform as the growth of online games has been seen to be a major contributor to the increasing annual educational outreach from 65,000 to over 600,000 over the course of four years!
Wreck Seeker is three years in the making and involves an impressive amount of detail that can help sharpen students’ historical skills. The shipwrecks in question are “semi-fictional” but are based on 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th-century wrecks. Players will deep dive into the gorgeous 3D waters and with the help of conversations with historians, eyewitnesses and locals must decide which sources they feel are the most reliable.Â
Once in the water, the hunt is on to find the lost wrecks.
“Well-designed games play an important role in engaging players not only with content, but also skill development and empathy building,” said Peter Tattersall, the museum’s Head of Learning.Â
But what makes it such an effective means of learning?
Tattersall asserts that it is because of its “capacity to transport players into powerful scenarios while giving them agency to interact in these spaces and deal, in a realistic way, with the consequences of their actions.”
To play Wreck Seeker, and the two preceding games (The Voyage and Cook’s Voyage), visit www.sea.museum/learn/apps-and-games.
