Teachers help Field Day Lab build out latest educational video game
By Laurel White
Ben Stern is stymied. His submarine is stuck.
The sub’s engine isn’t strong enough to overcome a strong ocean current in an area he wants to explore, and his typically trusty vehicle keeps getting pushed off course.
Shaking his fists at the sky, Stern smiles ruefully.
“It’s so frustrating,” he laughs. “I need more experience points to buy a stronger engine.”
Perhaps the mention of “experience points” gives it away, but Stern isn’t a professional submarine pilot — he’s just playing as one while exploring a virtual marine ecosystem.
Stern is a high school science teacher from Appleton. He’s one of two primary educational advisors on the latest educational video game from UW–Madison’s Field Day Lab, an immersive, life-sciences-focused game called Wake: Tales from the Aqualab.
On a beautiful summer day in Madison, Stern and about a dozen other teachers selected for Field Day’s latest implementation fellowship gathered on campus with Field Day researchers and staff. Their mission was clear: brainstorm a bundle of Wake-related lessons that could be distributed to teachers around the country.
(And to overcome that pesky ocean current, of course.)
In Wake, players take on the role of a scientist working at an ocean-floor research station. Putting students in a researcher’s shoes, the game aims to teach middle and high-school students about scientific research practices like identifying problems, designing experiments, creating models, and arguing from evidence.
“Science is not just the facts — it’s a way of knowing,” Stern explained. When students play Wake, they are “actively learning, poking, and prodding the system,” he said.
In the game, students conduct experiments like gathering samples of oceanic flora and fauna and bringing them back to their lab for observation. As the game progresses, the experiments grow increasingly complex and players earn more experience points to “buy” additional equipment needed to complete more advanced inquiries.
Before long, students are troubleshooting snags in their experiments and building out scientific models. In all, the game — which is the most in-depth Field Day Lab has ever created — can take up to eight to 10 hours to complete.
Including teachers like Stern in the game development process isn’t new for Field Day Lab. Getting feedback from educational advisors and implementation fellows is a key part of making these games a success, according to Jim Mathews, education director and associate researcher at Field Day.
“It’s important to have them involved early on,” Mathews said of the teachers, “to ensure that the game aligns with their curricular goals and needs.”
Since the onset of the Wake: Tales from the Aqualab project, which got its first round of funding from the National Science Foundation in 2019, 26 Wisconsin teachers from across the state have been looped in to offer feedback. From the earliest drafts of the game, those teachers have told the lab and its team of researchers and designers if the game is headed in the right direction. They have weighed in on whether it will help educators and students achieve necessary learning goals and, crucially, whether it will be engaging for students.
Involving students in playtesting is also a key part of the project.
“Kids are brutally honest,” Mathews laughed.
Olivia Dachel, a high school business, science, and computer science teacher from Merrill, described the atmosphere among the teachers helping brainstorm Wake curricula as “energetic” and “excited.”
“This is a great way to end the summer,” Dachel said. “It’s exciting for us to think about ways of bringing these concepts to our students.”
Dachel and the other teachers involved in the implementation fellowship were also able to visit the UW–Madison Center for Limnology and shadow a research scientist on a lake excursion. Mathews said the outing was aimed at giving teachers even more Wake-related insight and information to take back to their students. The implementation fellowship is also about connecting teachers to UW–Madison researchers and research, he said.
Dachel lit up when she talked about what her students will get from Wake. Her visit to campus over the summer wasn’t her first experience with Field Day Lab — she knows the unique strengths games can have in the classroom.
“They allow students of all levels to collaborate,” she said. “The gamers who never talked to anyone in class before … playing the game has them helping the AP student figure out a problem.”
Dachel said playing a role in getting Wake successfully from UW– Madison into classrooms around the state and the country has been a wonderful experience.
“It’s being a part of the Wisconsin Idea,” she said.
Game receives national, international awards
Field Day Lab’s The Legend of the Lost Emerald brought home a pair of major honors for educational video games in 2022 — a gold medal at the 2022 International Serious Play Awards Program and a top prize in the educational resources category at the 54th Annual Public Media Awards.
The Legend of the Lost Emerald allows fourth through sixth graders to explore Great Lakes shipwrecks as maritime archaeologists. Field Day says the game has been played more than 50,000 times since its launch last year.
Jim Mathews, education director and associate researcher at Field Day Lab, said students are the ultimate inspiration for Field Day Lab’s efforts.
“We have a vision to see games used as a vehicle to connect the public with contemporary research through media, and this project is a testament to how successful that strategy can be,” said David Gagnon, director of Field Day Lab.