Green building serious game

Despite a multi-decade boom in learning technologies, the challenge remains of integrating serious educational games into formal classrooms to achieve strong learning outcomes. This project develops and tests a serious game intervention (“Illumi’s World”) that aspires to be both engaging and supportive of learning outcomes. This game will be embedded within an NSF-funded curricular unit called “Energy and your Environment” (EYE) currently under development for middle school science classrooms. EYE is designed to help students make connections between energy systems and green building technologies. Illumi’s World aligns with the unit on energy efficient lighting to challenge the player to manipulate natural and artificial light to create the optimal environment for an alien baby named Illumi. Game success requires that the user integrates and uses knowledge of energy efficient and energy conserving lighting strategies. The project team previously received internal funding to develop the first level of Illumi’s World. The proposed project would leverage seed funding to expand the levels of the game and conduct usability testing in the formal classroom in advance of our next NSF proposal.  

Laura Cole; Laura Zangori; Danielle Oprean; Jong Bum Kim