STEM Mio aims to impact students, family and the community by engaging students in inquiry-based STEM learning, educating entire families on STEM careers and Latino role models, and preparing students for college pathways to STEM careers.

STEM Mio Platform

Powered by CGI’s ThriveCast platform, the STEM Mio program supports middle and high school Latino youth as they explore their personal passions, match those to STEM futures, connect with Latino STEM mentors, and gain the experiences to become strong college applicants. The STEM Mio journey is inspired through peer stories, supported through carefully designed learning challenges and peer championing, and culminates in real-world achievements.

The STEM Mio Journeys blend digital experiences (3D immersive games, career and personality inventories, online mentors, etc) with real-world experiences (doing hands on STEM activities, interviewing professionals, completing college and scholarship applications, etc). Notably, the game platform goes beyond STEM to help shape students through self-re ection, academic goal-setting, becoming a student mentor, and supporting strategic planning for college and careers.

Students

To support learning, students play STEM Mio in cohorts, either with their teacher/facilitator, or with other students online. Students can review each other’s accomplishments, and Teachers and STEM professionals give feedback as mentors. Learning is managed through a Teacher Dashboard, which shows players’ progress and accomplishments. The students, mentors, and teachers support each other as they explore STEM learning, grow their potential, and chart a course for college and career success.

Family

As a companion to the game-based journey and learning activities, VME has created a television series, Generación STEM, to engage entire families with STEM, college, and the bene ts of these careers. These episodes are available in English within STEM Mio, and in Spanish for families to watch together on TV and online.

This work is happening in partnership with our stakeholders and partners on this grant:

For information, collaborations, or to bring STEM Mio to your community, please contact Dr. Anna Arici at anna.arici@asu.edu. This work was supported through a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Money has been a hot news topic lately, with financial problems making major news. People’s Pie lets you examine and control the expenses of the federal government, deciding corporate, payroll, and income taxes and setting the age of retirement. You’re given a cut of the economic pie you’ve created with which to fund any programs you’d like, in Education, Veteran’s Affairs, and others. But don’t forget! Your citizens have certain needs as well. Can you keep them happy? Remember not to take on too much debt—it can be costly in the long run!

Civilization V is a turn based strategy game that puts the player in charge of a nation, such as China or America, leading and growing their civilization from early tribal roots to a modernized, dominant power. With near complete control over all aspects of the civilization’s growth, production, military, trade, and expansion, players can customize and strengthen their people, facing formidable barbarians and competing civilizations scattered throughout the countryside. Will war ravage the land or will there be peace between all nations?

Before Maxis created the well-known game The Sims, their most popular game was SimCity.  First released in 1989, SimCity is geared towards ages 13 and up, putting the player in the role of a mayor and letting them determine the course of action of a city.  Though the game doesn’t offer and end-game ‘win,’ the player is instead rewarded for playing the game successfully with the ability to continue playing, building more magnificent structures, increasing the population of their city and their annual income.

Before Maxis created the well-known game The Sims, their most popular game was SimCity.  First released in 1989, SimCity is geared towards ages 13 and up, putting the player in the role of a mayor and letting them determine the course of action of a city.  Though the game doesn’t offer and end-game ‘win,’ the player is instead rewarded for playing the game successfully with the ability to continue playing, building more magnificent structures, increasing the population of their city and their annual income.

Before Maxis created the well-known game The Sims, their most popular game was SimCity.  First released in 1989, SimCity is geared towards ages 13 and up, putting the player in the role of a mayor and letting them determine the course of action of a city.  Though the game doesn’t offer and end-game ‘win,’ the player is instead rewarded for playing the game successfully with the ability to continue playing, building more magnificent structures, increasing the population of their city and their annual income.

SIMS are games developed by Origin.com available for PC’s and Mac’s. There are many varieties of Sims games available; this impact guide reviews the basic edition, “Sim 3”. These simulations allow players to set up and explore a virtual community as a character (avatar). “Virtual Worlds are persistent, avatar-based social spaces that provide players with the ability to engage in long-term, coordinated and conjoined action.1” In the course of playing this game, the player creates a persona, selects a house, starts a family, and applies for jobs. What is the goal of the game? In terms of your lesson plan, this game will be interesting as a possible tool for a collaborative, construction activity. One goal might be for the student to explore design issues, and another might be to explore facets of living in the community.

This guide presents two key themes—Design and Living in the Community—and provides class activities, prompts for discussion, and deliverables around these themes.

The Sims series are games available for PCs, Macs, and various other mobile platforms. There are many varieties of Sims games available; this impact guide reviews the basic edition. These game is not extremely expensive and once installed, do not require money to play. A tutorial provides guidance in how to play. The Sim games are simulations in which the player enters and explores the space as a virtual character, an avatar. “Virtual Worlds are persistent, avatar-based social spaces that provide players with the ability to engage in long-term, coordinated and conjoined action.1” In the course of playing this game, the player creates an avatar, builds a house, and starts a family, and gets a job. What is the goal of the game? The goal depends upon the player: general goals might be to manage the Sim character well, and learn about living by experiencing new situations.

This Impact Guide explores themes in The Sims. As you play, you will enter and explore the space as a virtual character, an avatar. In the course of playing this game, you will select a town, create a character, build a house, start a family, and get a job. Along the way you will try to advance the wishes of your character or characters and encounter problems to solve through stories. What is the goal of the game? The goal depends upon the player: general goals might be to manage your Sim character well, and learn about living by experiencing new situations.

Computer and video games have emerged as one of the most powerful mediums of the 21st Century, generating billions of hours of highly engaged entertainment and surpassing even the film industry in terms of revenues. A growing body of research is also highlighting the enormous potential of games to drive meaningful and measurable learning, health and social impact (see 1, 2).

Throughout the world a broad cross-section of leaders from academia, philanthropy, public and private sectors are eager to harness the power of the medium to create more engaging and effective education models, foster healthy living practices, more efficiently train employees and, engage global youth in the critical issues facing a highly-connected, fast-moving 21^st Century world.  Games immerse learners in new levels of interactivity, personalization, engagement, community and complexity driving new and innovative 24/7 play, learning, social interaction, and entrepreneurial models across schools, industry, government, philanthropy and universities (1).

Recognizing the enormous potential of digital games, many leading foundations, academic institutions and government agencies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to harness the power of the medium to further their learning, health and social impact goals.  These investments in research and development are beginning to yield very positive proof-points through pilot implementations.  Unfortunately, however, the majority of these pilot impact game projects have not reached and engaged their target audience at significant scale and even fewer of these projects are financially sustainable.  

There currently exists a significant gap in design, development and publishing expertise within the ecosystem of impact games. There is currently no university hub that focuses on the intersection between the commercial computer and video game industry, the philanthropic and public interest sectors and academia. To fully realize the enormous potential of the medium, there needs be stronger, more innovative public-private partnerships across the commercial game sector, academia and the growing impact games community, as along with more rigorous design, development and publishing methodologies for impact games. With the amount of investment being used to grow this sector, it is our opportunity, if not responsibility, to ensure that this emerging discipline evolves in a manner that best serves the needs of society. The time is ripe and the location is ideal.

U.S. students are falling further behind other industrialized countries in everything from math and science scores to the proportion of young people with college degrees. The employment challenges our youth now face in a digitally-driven global landscape require a new set of 21st century “portable” skills which will be necessary as today’s young people enter the job market, transition from job to job, and eventually seek out jobs that do not yet exist. Nearly every major job in the 21st century – whether being a teacher, architect, journalist, mechanic, or construction worker—will be mediated by technology. The ability to harness digital media and technology will be a necessary competence for all. There also are thousands of jobs in America going unfilled every month because of a growing skills gap. This skills gap includes deficits in both “soft” and “hard” skills, each of which is necessary for finding and sustaining employment in today’s world.

At their core games are problem-spaces that are ideally structured to foster, as we pointed out above, 21st century skills. Both playing and making games have the potential to engage players in deep STEM content and problem-solving learning. Games can even be used to engage players in deep financial learning, in managing virtual economies, in optimizing economic systems, and in making investment decisions—and they can inform real policy decisions—all without the high stakes of the real world. Games, just as with other digital media, encourage production (e.g., design, programming, “modding”) and not just consumption, enabling participation and not just spectatorship. More generally, games can be used to foster the necessary science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) literacies so essential to our nation’s economic future. Further, rather than requiring the memorization of disembodied facts, games can foster these literacies in a manner that also builds passion and an appreciation of the relevancy of the knowledge—necessary if we are going to increase the national pipeline for STEM jobs.

Key Questions: How can we use games to motivate and teach in the STEM areas in ways that lead to deep understanding, real problem solving abilities, and really help youth prepare for careers in the 21st Century? How can we use games to teach 21st century skills like model-based reasoning, design skills, complex thinking, programming, collaboration, innovation, and facility with technical content and technology? How can games help close the skills gap and ensure that there are qualified employees for all open jobs?