Middle school teachers collaborated with Field Day Lab, a group of UW-Madison video game designers, to discuss the best way to use video games as a learning tool.
UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Institute for Discovery hosted the workshop where teachers advised the designers how to make a video game about a food web, which is an ecosystem of predators and prey, according to a university release. The proposed concept would feature changing levels of population that would allow the students to adjust their gameplay between rounds.
Field Day Lab is continuing to develop some of the ideas that were born in the workshop into free, open-sourced video games. The game designers said they aim to further engage students with an interactive learning environment.
“By engaging science teachers right from the start, we want to build games that will actually be used in classrooms,” said David Gagnon, the director of Field Day Lab, in the release. “Too many games languish because they do not fit what teachers want. With the teachers’ help, we want to build them right—right out of the gate.”
