When I was a teenager in the early 1980s, I realized the potential of using video games in education. The same high school classmates who couldn’t pass a test at school could somehow remember what potion or scroll to use to tame dozens of kinds of monsters in video games that they loved, like “Dungeons and Dragons” and “Rogue.”

A couple of decades later, as a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, I became frustrated by teaching poorly attended classes. As many as 300 students had signed up to attend my lectures, but only half regularly showed up for class.

So in 2015, I decided to transform my course, “The Artistic Universe,” which explores astronomy through artistic expression, into a video game called “University of Mars.” Instead of attending lectures, students simply play the game to learn the same astronomy content. Most of the students who graduated from Penn State last year earned college credit for playing this video game course.

Because of its blending of astronomy and art, “The Artistic Universe” is one of the most popular choices to satisfy the school’s requirement that students take an interdisciplinary course in order to graduate.

What does the course explore?

Students taking this class study abroad, so to speak, at the fictional University of Mars. There, they contemplate what it would feel like to live on another planet. They fly from planet to planet in the solar system and return a baby alien to its home planet, which is orbiting another star. They fly out into the vastness of space, explore the collections of stars called galaxies, and assemble their own universes.

Students learn about astronomy – understanding constellations, planets, stars, galaxies and the expanding universe – all while playing this video game.

Students then do a range of assignments, including creative writing and visual art, based on what they learned in the game.

Why is this course relevant now?

Students today learn differently than they did three decades ago when I started teaching at Penn State. Most of my students are no longer inclined to systematically read a textbook, as my old astronomy class required. Some students pick and choose whether to attend class based on whether they can get the same information from notes or slides.

By peeling off the layers of the Sun or flying through the razor-thin disk of a spiral galaxy in the video game I created, students can learn and have fun, making school feel less like work. The game helps students think about humanity’s place within a vast universe.

What’s a critical lesson from the course?

Playing a video game brings the students into a story. It pushes students to imagine life beyond Earth and to recognize that life is likely scattered all throughout the universe.

It is amazing to consider the potential for life in varied forms spread over the vastness of space. It is humbling to know that humans have existed for less than 500,000 years out of the more than 13 billion years since the universe began to expand.

The entire history of humanity is a microscopic piece of something so much bigger. And where did our universe come from? What will happen to it? Is it part of an even larger structure in multiple dimensions? I hope every student will reflect on what all of this means to them as they develop their own purpose in life.

What materials does the course feature?

The “University of Mars” begins at a colony on Mars, and players venture off into the solar system, to nearby stars and to other galaxies. It also includes many mini-games. There’s one that involves moving the Moon around the Earth to understand its phases, and another in which players manipulate light and gases to understand spectroscopy – the study of how light interacts with matter.

After playing the game, students participate in creative writing exercises, including letters, journal entries or even original songs, that speak to their experience. In one creative writing assignment, students are prompted to detail the first human encounter with an alien, as they experience in the game. In another, they grapple with whether to join a collective consciousness – a scientific version of a hive mind – and lose their individuality while gaining immortality.

Art projects include creating their own planet and an alien that lives there, and turning black-and-white images from the Hubble Space Telescope into colorful ones using Photoshop.

What will the course prepare students to do?

“The Artistic Universe” accomplishes different things for different students. Exposure to art puts some in touch again with their artistic side that may have been set aside in college to pursue more practical things.

They likely won’t remember the details from the game and the class a decade from now, but hopefully they will remember the feeling they had when they realized just how far away the nearest star and nearest galaxy really are.

Experiencing the story of the universe by playing a video game can bring comfort and familiarity to students. From this position of comfort, they can pause and reflect. For many, the “University of Mars” experience gives a new appreciation and perspective on life.

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jane Charlton, Penn State

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Jane Charlton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.