Teens Explore Science and Health through Game Design

Educators often struggle to teach teens about sexual and reproductive health. Hexacago Health Academy (HHA) , an education program from the University of Chicago, leverages the fun activity of gameplay to impart these lessons to young people from Chicago’s South Side community. Funded by the Student Education Partnership Award (SEPA), part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), in 2015, HHA assists teachers in their goal of helping teen students gain awareness and control over their health and also learn about careers in STEM and health fields. Melissa Gilliam, founder of Ci3. Credit: Anna Knott, Chicago Magazine. Genesis of HHA HHA was cofounded by Melissa Gilliam , a University of Chicago professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Pediatrics and founder of the Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry & Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3) . During a 2013 summer program with high school students, Gilliam and Patrick Jagoda , associate professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, and cofounder of Ci3’s Game Changer Chicago Design Lab , introduced the students to their STEM-based alternate reality game called The Source , in which a young woman crowdsources player help to solve a mystery that her father has created for her. From their experience with The Source, Gilliam and Jagoda quickly learned that students not only wanted to play games but to design them too. What followed was the Game Changer Lab’s creation of the...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Computers in Biology Infectious Disease Training Source Type: blogs