Scimon Cards -- Gotta Catch a Little Science!

SCIMON CARDS -- GOTTA CATCH A LITTLE SCIENCE!

What are Scimon Cards?

Scimon cards are like Pokemon cards, except with real creatures! When you say "Scimon", it should rhyme with "time on", since the first three letters come from SCIence.

Where did Scimon come from?

Haven't you ever thought about what a shame it is that kids all over the world are memorizing thousands of useless factoids about made-up creatures? And paying for the privilege?

My son, Ben, enjoys Pokemon and loves science (he plans to become a paleontologist), so he made up a version of Pokemon cards with real living things, with animals and plants and "attacks" that let you learn about the natural world.

He started with 100% hand-written and hand-drawn cards, and we've now progressed to making cards using Powerpoint and images loaded off the Web. Google's image search turns out to be really useful for this. (It's also got an automatic "mature content" filter to keep the images you get back safe for kids.)

How does Scimon work?

Download some cards. You'll get a Powerpoint file.
In Powerpoint, go to the "Print" menu. Under "Print what?" select 'handouts', and under "Slides per page" select 6.
You'll get cards that are a good size for cutting out and gluing/taping onto standard 3x5" index cards.
Play with the cards however you'd like! Ben's version of the game involves taking turns where one person puts out an organism card and the other person plays an attack. You subtract the attack points from the organism's hit points (HP), and when the HP reaches zero the card is "out".

What if one of your cards has incorrect information on it?

Please write to me at resnik@glue.umd.edu with the correction and a pointer to where you got the information. We want these cards to be scientifically accurate. Note, though, that there's plenty of room for creativity in strengths, weaknesses, and attacks. For example, Ben decided to make the giraffe's weakness "lightning" because it's so tall!

Can I add my own Scimon cards?

If you want to make your own Scimon cards, I'll be very happy to add them to this site, as long as you follow the following directions:

Nobody is allowed to sell Scimon cards for money.

You have to copy our Powerpoint slides and change the information on them, instead of designing your cards from scratch. This way all cards will have the same "look and feel".

You have to make sure all the information on the card is spelled right and that it's scientifically correct.

If you use pictures you've downloaded from the Web (from Google's image search, or wherever), your card must include the Web address (URL) where you got the image, the same way our cards do. This way you're being fair to the people you borrowed the images from!
You should e-mail me a Powerpoint (.ppt) file as an attachment, and it has to have at least twelve (12) new cards in it. Otherwise I'll spend all day doing this stuff and not get any work done!
In your message, you should include your name, your age, and where you come from, so I can give you credit. Feel free to give me a funny or interesting title for your deck.

From what I can see, kids like to make animal cards (kingdom metazoa) more often than they make cards from kingdoms chromista (kelps, diatoms, haptophytes), fungi (fungi), plantae (plants), or protista (protists). So you deserve extra applause if you add cards from these other four kingdoms. (Plus, they contain really interesting things!)

Where can I get good information for making cards?

There are lots of great books in the library you can use, so ask your librarian. And there are many great Web sites to look at. Some of the sites we like the most are:

The Canadian Museum of Nature
Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology, especially their great taxonomy of Eukaryotes, which points to tons and tons of different organisms.
Project Exploration

Would Scimon make a good classroom activity?

I certainly hope so! If you're a teacher and you design a classroom activity that involves using or making Scimon cards, please send me e-mail describing the activity and I'll add it to this site so that other teachers can benefit from your ideas. And if you e-mail me a Scimon deck made by the kids in your class, I'll add it to the site, or I'll add a link to your page if you send me the URL.

Have fun, and feel free to write to me at resnik@glue.umd.edu with any comments!

Yours sincerely,

THE SCIMON MASTER
(also known as Ben's Dad)

Keywords: Scimon cards, Pokemon, biology, paleontology, fun science, kids, teachers, educational activities,science activities, classroom activities, school activities, animals, plants, fungi, chromista, protists.
Last update: 30 October 2001
Contact: scimon_master@yahoo.com