Teaching quantum concepts to high school students using targeted instruction aided by gameplay and game-based puzzles

To engage high-school students with quantum physics, we have designed a multipart experience for classrooms nationwide. The full activity fits within a single class period and leverages quantum games, both physical and digital, as well as bespoke animations, to deliver an immersive experience for students. Each experience begins with a game we call Zeros and Ones, where students work together to fill in randomly chosen rows and columns of a 3-by-3 grid using even and odd numbers of 0s and 1s, respectively. The activity relies only on pen and paper to offer a quick example of a game whose classical winning probability decreases exponentially with every new round of play, priming students for the introduction of a quantum-based perfect winning strategy. The next part finds students engaged in a self-paced, story-driven introduction to quantum superposition via a set of puzzles developed within the game of Quantum Chess. The class comes full circle with a pair of videos that intuitively describe the perfect quantum strategy for Zeros and Ones, and offer a glimpse into exciting future applications of quantum computers. In this presentation, we will discuss the learning materials and the results obtained through the pilot runs of the activity in high-school classes around the nation.