ORIGIN STORIES The “Pollinator Superheroes” project began in late 2019 with a partnership between the National Pesticide Safety Education Center (NPSEC) and Prairie View A&M Uni- versity (PVAMU) to create a “Prep for Pollinators Cam- paign” for children and adults. The project expanded in 2020 with seasonal pollinator guides for the PVAMU and Pawnee Nation College (PNC) communities. In 2021 and 2022, NPSEC—collaborating with Nebraska Indian Community College, PNC, PVAMU, and the St. Louis Zoo—secured an NTAE grant to create episode one of “Pollinator Superheroes: The Beginning.” The episode is a 20-minute story about Nate, a fourth grader who en- lists the help of pollinators to save his neighborhood from a misguided developer. Through the adventures of their animated friends, youth learn the crucial role they play in protecting pollinators while simultaneously being intro- duced to the Dakota language. “Animation was a great way to get into this audience,” says team leader Kara Maddox, of KJM Digital. “Kids are already used to going to a digital space for this type of content. I wanted to meet them where they are.” “Night of the Living Debt” is NMSU LGL’s third online educational game funded by NTAE. Like its food safety education cousin “Theme Park Kitchen”—a 2022–2023 NTAE-funded project—“Living Debt” started out as a tablet-based game but is being relaunched as a web- based program. It immerses players in a post-apocalyp- tic world, populated by zombies, where they face perils involving credit, debt, and choices about housing, educa- tion, and transportation. The game is racking up awards and evidence that it works, says team lead Dr. Matheus Cezarotto. A study done on the first version of the game was promising, said Cezarotto. “Pre- and post-surveys are showing us that youth have high levels of engagement, knowledge gain, and intent to change behaviors when it comes to financial literacy issues.” INCLUSIVE DESIGN Ensuring that the products they produce are culturally relevant to and resonate with the demographic and age groups they are designed to reach is a primary goal of
Beyond BOOKS
Team members describe how they are using technology to create educational experiences for young learners.
youtu.be/mRUYk1oZtYU?si=FBV-XLMiuCMZT5v9
Maddox and Cezarotto—both of whom involve youth as co-creators in their work. Cezarotto and the NMSU team use a framework devel- oped by members of the team (Dr. Barbara Chamberlin, Dr. Pamela Martinez, and Cezarotto) to ensure inclusive design. Their process takes into account differences in learning styles, accessibility, and representation. Cezarotto describes it like this: “Designing for inclusion involves co-creating with our intended audiences and user testing. We conduct needs assessments and research to measure impact. Lots of people see and use our games before they go out. We seek out those with different back- grounds and perspectives, which is essential for creating culturally relevant and accessible games.” He adds that research is the base of everything, before they even design a game. The team collaborates with experts on the game’s content—and they conduct user testing throughout devel- New Mexico State’s Learning Games Lab asks intended players of its games to give the games a test run, taking the players’ feedback into consideration as they devel- op the products.
opment on character design, interface, and gameplay. They also conduct post-use research to gauge the game’s impact, asking such questions as “Are you getting knowledge?” and “Is it changing your behavior?” The team’s collaborative approach to design is detailed in a publication they wrote for a previous NTAE grant project, “Collaborative Design in Extension: Using a Mod- ified Game Jam to Explore Game-Based Learning.” That project, in partnership with the University of Connecticut, resulted in a prototype for an interactive mobile app to help consumers understand food labels. Maddox and her team also include youth in their process. “We host pilot viewings for the intended audience and gather feedback,” she says. “Youth have also been involved in script reading, helped us with character development, and provided feedback on character animations and ep- isode length.” She says the team also has created a video viewer guide so that the audience can answer questions as they watch, about how easy the story is to follow and whether it prompted new thinking about pollinators. “Design is very powerful,” Cezarotto says “It can include (or exclude) people. You need to be intentional in consider-
ing diverse audiences and backgrounds, and the different needs of end users. If they are represented by the tool that you’ve made, they will feel like, ‘I see myself there.’” WORTH THE WORK Maddox and Cezarotto say that bringing technology developers together with visual and storytelling artists and educational experts isn’t always an easy process. But both teams have found ways to blend their talents and visions to create content that is appealing to their audiences. Cezarotto says, “It takes a lot of different people to create a game—and each person—from artist to user tester—con- tributes something special. When everyone on the team is committed to the educational goals, there is so much pos- sibility.” Maddox agrees, and when she thinks of how her two-year-old son became so quickly engaged after watching episode one of “Superheroes,” she knows all of the time and energy are worth it. “I brought him up to the flowers in our yard and watched the bees working, and I had this elevated conversation about pollinators with a two-year-old!” ·
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2023-2024 YEARBOOK | EXTENSION FOUNDATION/NTAE
EXTENSION FOUNDATION/NTAE | 2023-2024 YEARBOOK
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