Newsbrief: The National Science Foundation has given a $1.5 million grant to the University of Colorado at Boulder to help fund research on using video games to aid computer science education.
The money will go toward supporting a team of researchers within the university who have previously used video game design curricula to teach students about computer science and encourage them to pursue careers in information technology.
This new project will examine how video game design can engage students in computational thinking and aid them in the design of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) simulations.
Readers will also have noted the reference to STEM in the recent Gamasutra story on NASA's games.
Basically STEM is the buzzword du jour if you want a slice of the taxpayer funding pie for anything even vaguely science-oriented. That doesn't make it "bad"; it's just a little more realistic than thinking that only pure science is enough to score grant money.
Basically STEM is the buzzword du jour if you want a slice of the taxpayer funding pie for anything even vaguely science-oriented. That doesn't make it "bad"; it's just a little more realistic than thinking that only pure science is enough to score grant money.