‘Atapuerca-Evolution. Educational video games (ATAEVE)’

Xavier Rubio-Campillo, Barcelona Supercomputing Center; F. Xavier Pueyo Sández and Gustavo A. Patow, Escola Politécnica Superior of Girona; María Feliu Torruella, Neus Sallés Tenas, Ann Elizabeth Wilson Daily, Gemma Sebares Valle, Rafael Sospedra Roca, Isabel Boj Cullel, Eva María Poblador Relancio, Mireia Romero Serra, Gemma Cardona Gómez and Lorena Jiménez Torregrosa, University of Barcelona; y Robert Sala Ramos, Universitad Rovira i Virgili.

The project ‘Atapuerca-Evolution. Educational video games’ seeks to foster the use of simulation, viewed as a learning strategy with an interdisciplinary horizon that is attuned to technoscientific development. The example selected for the proposed gamification is the Atapuerca archeological site, bearing in mind its spectrum of space-time variables and the combination it offers of known fact and conjecture.

The project brings together the experience of researchers and work teams attached to four institutions. The Human Paleology and Social Evolution Institute at Rovira y Virgili University in Tarragona, which has played and maintains an important role in the research performed at Sierra de Atapuerca digs; the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, with extensive experience in the simulation field; VIRVIG (Research Center for Visualization, Virtual Reality and Graphics Interaction) at the University of Girona, with expertise in video game design; and the DIDPATRI heritage education research group at the University of Barcelona, known for its work in the field of social science teaching methods.

‘Atapuerca-Evolution. Educational video games’ does not start from scratch, but rather builds on the earlier Evolving Planet project developed by the BCN Supercomputing Center, with the involvement of the DIDPATRI team. This previous, generic experience will now serve as input for a project that works with the variables surrounding Atapuerca in order to facilitate young people’s scientific training by reference to one of the great archeological sites of the Iberian Peninsula, and to understand and disseminate its heritage value.