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Red Butte Garden is trying to sneak some education past its young visitors, with a series of interactive games that take kids on science adventures through the garden.

The games use GPS-enabled smartphones and an app called TaleBlazer, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to take players through the garden, imparting information about the garden's plants and landmarks through a storyline.

The first two of the five games were released today: "Garden Tales," which uses Red Butte Garden's resident gnome, Chauncey, to teach garden etiquette and give a TaleBlazer tutorial; and "Lady Nightshade and the Invaders," in which kids learn about invasive species as they try to defeat the evil Lady Nightshade.

Three more games will be released, on the first day of April, May and June.

The games are part of a pilot program, a collaboration between Red Butte Garden, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, the San Diego Zoo and MIT — with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Red Butte Garden is located at 300 Wakara Way, on the University of Utah campus, Salt Lake City.