The idea of learning something with the help of a game is not new: there are board games, card games and computer games that have subjects involving science. As it turns out, striking a balance between a game being "fun" on one hand and "educational" on the other is not always easy. Typically a game is designed with an intended audience in mind, ranging from children to professional scientists. Below is a list of links to mostly online activities and games. Most sites below are for children, but if you can answer all quizzes in the "intermediate" section for high school students, let us know! What are your experiences? Write us an email and tell us what games you enjoyed, we might add your recommendations to this list!

Starters for Kids

Gamequarium
A great site with links to over 300 online science related games. Be it dinosaurs, oceanography or astronomy: for each subject there many games that are fun not only for kids!
http://www.gamequarium.com/science.htm

PrimaryGames.com
Science games and ebooks for children covering topics in seasons, colors, plants, and shapes.
http://www.primarygames.com/science.htm

National Geographics: A wonderful site for kids containing photos, stories, games and online activities maintained by the National Geographic Society: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com

NASA: The NASA web site is fascinating on many levels, but it also contains a wonderful kids section with games and online activities: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash

Magic Pen: Physics you can draw!
http://www.popsci.com/adam-weiner/article/2008-09/playing-games-science-magic-pen

Biology Games at KidsBiology.com - Biology For Kids
The site contains many game and online activities that teach biology in a fun way
http://www.kidsbiology.com/biology_fun/index.php

Intermediate...

Chemistry Games
The site contains a variety Online games related to chemistry on a high school level
http://www.mansfieldct.org/schools/mms/staff/hand/chemgames.htm

Games and Puzzles

Science and and puzzles maintained by the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.
http://education.jlab.org/indexpages/elementgames.php

Science Quizzes at Syvum
Syvum contains many online learning resources for school children. for example at the chemistry related quizzes:
http://www.syvum.com/squizzes/chem/index.htm

Biology Games and Quizzes
Try these biology games and quizzes and find out how much you really know about ... Biology games and quizzes can be an effective way to learn about the ...
http://biology.about.com/od/gamesandquizzes/a/aa051707a.htm

Advanced but Fun Stuff...

Fermi problems : a Fermi question is one that requires estimates in order to quickly arrive at a roughly correct answer. This is explained in more detail here:
http://www.physics.uwo.ca/science_olympics/events/puzzles/fermi_questions.html

Real World Mathematics
One of the challenges facing mathematics teachers is convincing their students that there is a place for mathematics in the real world. The goal of this page is to collect examples of those applications. twist, and Fermi activities for the K12 classroom. http://score.kings.k12.ca.us/real.world.html