Former Supreme Court Justice to Make Civics Game

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her involvement in the development of an educational online civics game for middle school students called Our Courts, Game|Life reported today.

O'Connor, who made the announcement as part of the closing keynote address at this year's Games For Change conference, will be collaborating with University of Wisconsin-Madison professor James Paul Gee and other educators to create the game. Our Courts is expected to arrive in September of 2009.

The retired justice explained that American students aren't learning enough about civics and government, and that games could prove a useful tool to strengthen civics education. Early exercises in the game, for example, will use recent Supreme Court hearings to educate students about their First Amendment rights.

"E-mailing, blogging, networking on Facebook—they can take leadership, make their voices heard through tools that belong to their generation. We need to give them ownership to allow them to interact with the material," she said.

Our Courts could allow players to "step into the shoes of a judge, a legislator, an executive—teach them how to think through and analyze problems, take action and voice opinions to their elected representatives."

"We can't forget that the primary purpose of public schools in America is to produce citizens who have the skills and knowledge to sustain our form of government," O'Connor stated. "Public education is the only longterm solution to preserving an independent judiciary and constitutional democracy."

Though no platforms for Our Courts were directly specified, the nature of the educational title seems to indicate a downloadable or browser-based PC release.