Games are a fun way to learn, at home or in the classroom. Unlike most science games, Cogno educational board games teach critical thinking and concepts, not just trivia.
Cogno seamlessly integrates great game strategy with learning about astronomy, forces & motion and life sciences … in a fun, refreshingly non-trivial way! Up to six individuals can play or many more in teams.
Questions, answers … plus easy-to-understand explanations!
Part of the game involves thought-provoking multiple choice and True/False questions—designed for ages 7-13.
For the curious, the game includes a "Book of Y" that explains every answer. All educational content was expert-reviewed by scientists at NASA and the SETI Institute.
Sample Game Questions and Explanations
(correct answer is bold)True or False: You could light a campfire on the moon if you had wood, paper and matches
Book of Y explanation: Building a fire with wood, paper and matches requires oxygen to allow the paper and the wood to burn. The Moon doesn't possess enough gravity to hold an atmosphere of gas around it. So there is no oxygen to allow the fire to burn. You couldn't even light a match on our moon!
If you and an elephant were floating in space and you pushed on the elephant, which of you would move away from the starting point faster? a) you; b) the elephant; c) both would move the same speed; or d) the duck
Book of Y explanation: One of Isaac Newton's "laws" of motion says "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Imagine that you and a friend, who weigh exactly the same (on Earth), were floating in space. If you push your friend, an equal force causes each of you to move away from the starting point at exactly the same speed. But if your friend were an elephant, with far more mass than you, it would be different. You would drift away much more quickly because the same force, applied to less mass, creates more acceleration.
True or False: We have less chance of finding intelligent life on planets around very large stars than we do of finding it around smaller or medium-sized stars
Book of Y explanation: Giant stars only have a life of around 30,000 years. This is not much time for life to develop on its planets. Intelligent life takes a long time to develop once life starts, so the chances of finding it around short-lived giant stars are slimmer than if we searched around smaller stars.
True or False: A dog would not need a space suit to survive in space because its fur coat would keep it warm
Book of Y explanation: Keeping warm is only one of the challenges in space. Two other important challenges are breathing and air pressure. First, there is no breathable air in the middle of space … A dog needs a planet's atmosphere to breathe, so it could not breathe in space. Second, the body of an animal that lives on Earth is accustomed to the air pressure on Earth. As you move away from the surface of the Earth, the air becomes thinner and thinner. In space, there is nearly no air at all, so the air pressure is close to zero. This means an Earth animal–with enough internal pressure to withstand Earth's atmosphere—would practically explode in pressureless outer space.
True or False: If you start counting by ones (1, 2, 3…) and your friend starts counting by twos (2, 4, 6, 8…), your friend would reach "infinity" first.
Book of Y explanation: Neither of you would ever get to infinity. In fact, infinity isn't really a number. It's more of an idea. The idea is that some things never end. No matter how high you count, you could always add one more to it, right? That's why we think of numbers as "infinite" and call the idea of having an end that has no real end "infinity."
"No Wrong Answer" question: If you were invited to visit another planet to live with beings from that world for one week, would you do it? Why or why not?
Book of Y explanation: No-Wrong-Answer question… what do you think?