Petri Dish is a game that simulates the growth of bacteria cells. As they design and direct their cells through a series of challenges, players explore and apply what they learn about passive and active transport, metabolic networks, genomes, organelles, reproduction, and control systems. The game encourages players to zoom in to see what is happening on the molecular scale, and then zoom back out to see how their design decisions affect their cells on a population scale.

Because the game is built on top of a robust cell model, Petri Dish is open-ended. Players are free to come up with their own challenges and explore their own “what-if” scenarios, making it an excellent tool for scientific inquiry.

Cell Biology 101 provides more details about the cell model in Petri Dish and the science and mathematics behind it. Instructional Design 3.5 provides more details about the pedagogy embedded in the game experience.