Supreme Court Justices Are Designing Video Games

MSNBC reports that retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is involved in developing a video game that will teach students how our judicial system works. The site, called Our Courts, will be fully operations come this fall in time for the start of the 2009-10 school year.

Here's a passage from the MSNBC article:

She said the only way to preserve an independent judiciary was through public education, which she said was failing to produce citizens with enough knowledge about the three branches of U.S. government — legislative, executive and judicial.

The Our Courts project will have two parts, O'Connor said. The first is on online interactive civics program designed to be used by children from 7th to 9th grades either to supplement existing courses or as a distinct unit in the curriculum.

The program, developed with Georgetown University law school and Arizona State University, will be distributed free online.

"It will allow students to engage in real legal issues," she said. Asked to give an example, she said one element would focus on a scenario of a school attempting to stop students wearing a T-shirt with a controversial slogan — a free speech issue designed to elicit argument about the 1st Amendment.