OK, first off, I am not a fan of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, but they have a cool online game as a companion piece that combines virtual online gaming with real-world, real-time data. In Sharkrunners, you are a marine biologists, and your goal is to track down sharks and collect data about them. Based on the data you collect, you can earn more “funding,” which will of course allow you to get more equipment and get better data.

I only had a few minutes to play around with the game, but it’s a pretty neat way to illustrate how real and virtual data can be combined into a game application, where you can see just how much fun science can be!