In 2002, conservationist Andrew Balmford and colleagues published a study that reported the disheartening ability of school kids to recognize more Pokémon creatures than real plants and animals. While many simply shook their heads in dismay, science outreach specialist David Ng of the University of British Columbia decided to do something about it, and in 2010 he appealed to the collective wisdom of the internet to help him out.
"We put a line, literally a single sentence that said 'Kids know more about Pokémon than they do about plants and animals in their backyard, and we'd like to do something about that,' and released it to the web, and sat back and waited to see what happened," said Ng.
What resulted was a brand new card game, based on the attributes of real flora and fauna. Phylo asks players to use their species cards to create food chains and ecosystems, ...
