National STEM Video Game Challenge Launches
The 2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge, which is a collaboration between E-Line Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop (JGCC) with generous support from AMD Foundation, Entertainment Software Association(ESA), Microsoft and CPB/PBS KIDS Ready to Learn, is well underway.
The competition seeks to inspire students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) – all areas that are declining in the United States compared to other developing nations – through games, which have proven effective in demonstrating high-order thinking and skills.
Past challenge winners created written game document designs and playable games with STEM themes. Former STEM Prize winner, Jasper Hugunin, recently designed a videogame using E-Line’s and Institute of Plays’ Game Star Mechanic among 100 young adults in the late White House Science Fair.
The STEM competition, which was inspired by President Obama’s Education to Innovate Campaign, features three categories: middle school, high school and and collegiate. This year’s STEM games are expected to be focused around the National Research Council’s 2011 Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Entries close March 12, 2012. For more, visit stemchallenge.org.
For more STEM-related challenges and contests read “10+ STEM Inspiring Challenge and Contests.”
jim miller
"It’s heartening to see STEM get the kind of impetus it’s been getting lately.
STEM video game challenge is brilliant step in exciting students about STEM. Also promoting gaming in learning STEM allows game-like progression exploring 21st-century skills such as code-based problem solving, social media generation and integration, and design through games. But it’s also important to promote and deliver exceptional STEM resources to students. Digital resources like CK-12 FlexBooks, Sal Academy and interactive games like Quest to Learn, are prime examples of resources that make STEM more engaging. Especially, I think CK-12 FlexBooks (www.ck12.org) are absolutely great for STEM with their brilliantly written content that can be aligned with state (or country) curriculum requirements using any of several different learning modalities (text, video explanations, experimentation, labs, playing with Flexmath, simulations, Q&A bank for students or teachers
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