Angry Birds Playground isn’t about slides and swings (although some of those exist too). Angry Birds Playground is a new educational programme from the games’ developer Rovio, which has just been announced today.
It’s described as “a learning programme for 3 to 8-year-olds based on the Finnish National Curriculum for kindergarten”, with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (of Large Hadron Collider fame) its first partner.
The pair are planning to work on “ways of developing amazing learning resources” – we’re betting apps will form part of that – and showcased the potential at the Frankfurt Book Fair today with an interactive demo of the particle accelerator, using Angry Birds (pictured).
“Modern physics has been around for 100 years, but it’s still a mystery to many people. Working together with Rovio, we can teach kids quantum physics by making it fun and easy to understand,” says CERN’s Rolf Landua in a statement.
“When you’re really interested, you can learn anything. With Playground products, kids can have fun and learn more about physics than they would’ve in the ‘old-fashioned’ style of learning,” says Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka.
Count us VERY excited about Angry Birds Playground. We’ve seen at first-hand how our children respond to the Angry Birds characters, and with 200 million people playing the games every month, there are plenty of other kids out there who love them (and their pig foes too).
If that fandom can be turned into education, it’s a very powerful thing indeed. We’re looking forward to seeing the first results from Rovio and CERN’s partnership. In the meantime, we’ll have to focus on cooking some eggs…
RT @AppsPlayground: Angry Birds Playground will provide education for 3-8 year-olds: http://t.co/shlMNefU cc @pvesterbacka
Angry Birds Playground will provide education for 3-8 year-olds: http://t.co/MGXZJ2EQ cc @pvesterbacka #digitaleducation #games
RT @AppsPlayground: Angry Birds Playground will provide education for 3-8 year-olds: http://t.co/shlMNefU cc @pvesterbacka
RT @AppsPlayground: Angry Birds Playground will provide education for 3-8 year-olds: http://t.co/shlMNefU cc @pvesterbacka
Rovio & CERN partnership to educate 3-8 years old kids – Angry Birds Playground http://t.co/1WjCKjKt
[...] The National Geographic book was one step, while a partnership with CERN – the European Organisation for Nuclear Research – announced in October 2012 promised physics-based “fun learning experiences” as part of an educational initiative called Angry Birds Playground. [...]