Inspired by reading the Rieber article on play, I dug-up my beloved copy of the Exploritorium magazine commemorating the life of Frank Oppenheimer (1912-1985), founder of the Exploratorium. One of the articles in the magazine is a reprint of a piece that Mr. Oppenheimer wrote in 1980 titled "Adult Play". In just a few pages he captures some of the essential aspects of play that we as educators are interested in. In particular, he touches on an issue that I find compelling: that the ability to play with ideas is something that some students do not learn how to do. He goes on "…it is clear that the kind of playing that is so fruitful in art and science and in getting accustomed to life or change is an extremely vital aspect of all human endeavor. If the ability to play is inadvertently denied to a large part of the population, it would be worth finding out why."
I believe that we can encourage students to play with ideas, by providing simulations and games that serve as idea "tinker-toys." To do this, we must extract some of the salient concepts of a particular domain (be it mathematics, biology, or social science) and build a microworld that allows students to combine these concepts in new and unexpected ways.
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