GAME JAM:

What Is A Game Jam?

“The goal of a "Game Jam" is for a small group to get together and prototype game designs (online, pervasive, tabletop, or other formats). Participants share a common theme and create a working prototype in a short amount of time. The brief time span is meant to help encourage creative thinking to develop small innovative games.

Games are increasingly used in educational settings to help inspire curiosity, creativity, collaboration, optimism, and problem-solving skills among a wide variety of audiences. Serious games address real-world challenges, compress time and space, encourage systems thinking, and promote active engagement, making them particularly well suited to conservation education.”

From Iowa Game Jam Website: https://sites.google.com/iowaee.org/icec-game-jam/home#h.gg2ua9wre40z

You can apply a game jam to any topic! For this specific website we are covering a game jam for endangered species specifically located in Iowa.

Next Generation Science Standards:

For this specific topic we are focusing on 6th Grade NGSS.

• MS-LS2-5: Ecosystems (Interactions, Energy, Dynamics)

• Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services

• MS-ESS3-3: Earth and Human Activity

• Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment

• HS-LS2-7: Ecosystems (Interactions, Energy, Dynamics)

• Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity

• HS-LS4-6: Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity

• Create or revise a simulation to test a solution to mitigate adverse impacts of human activity on biodiversity