Stemtendo PBL

The STEMtendo PBL was a resounding favorite among incoming and outgoing STEM Academy students. As the English facilitator to a lot of potential engineers, it's challenging to identify authentic and creative writing applications for STEM majors, but luckily most of my students are gamers. After hearing Matt Mistele's TEDtalk, "The Great American Video Game", inspiration struck. This PBL calls for students to develop narrative-based video game ideas and products.

Students are tasked with designing a game that acts as an allegory for a current social issue. By the end of the project, they have: written a research essay on their social issue, written a short story allegory on which they can base the game play, created a story board of the levels to give the audience a concept of the game play, and created a digital representation of their game for marketing purposes. (We used Aesop's Fables and multiple short stories, such as Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rain, as case studies of effective allegorical short stories.)

The last year of this project, students were given freedom in how their team interpreted 'digital representation', so the products and technologies varied by choice (see link to STEMtendo website below). Some made video game trailers, others created digital storyboards, print ads, and even websites. Planning documents and examples are available below.