The National Center for Education Research (NCER) supports rigorous research that addresses the nation’s most pressing education needs, from early childhood to adult education.
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IES Funded Technology Developer Wins Grand Prize from the National STEM Video Game ChallengeOn March 30, Filament Games won the Grand Prize from the National STEM Video Game Challenge for their IES-supported project. The award of $50,000 was presented by the United States Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra. The Wisconsin-based technology firm received a 2010 Fast-Track (Phase I and II) award from the IES Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to develop and research a suite of web-based life science games to facilitate deeper conceptual understandings of the science inquiry process among middle school students and in particular, struggling learners.
Filament Games won the challenge among a group of some forty applicants for a game titled You Make Me Sick!, the first of five games to be developed. You Make Me Sick! aims to teach students about the physical structure of bacteria and viruses, as well as how they are spread. A demonstration of the game prototype can be viewed at http://www.filamentgames.com/gils/videos/ymms-demo-2. The National STEM Video Game Challenge was originated to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by tapping into the natural passion of youth for playing and making video games. The Developer Prize through the challenge is focused on the design and development of games that teach key STEM concepts and foster an interest in STEM subject areas. The Challenge is supported by the Entertainment Software Association, Microsoft, and The AMD Foundation in partnership with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and E-Line Media.
The IES SBIR program provides awards of up to $1.05M in funding to small businesses and partners for the full-scale development of products to facilitate student learning, teacher efficiency, or tools to improve education research. After projects are completed, the goal for the program is for products to be commercialized in the private sector. For more information about the Institute's SBIR program, visit http://ies.ed.gov/ncer/sbir/. The next program announcement will likely be available in late 2011. For more information, contact Edward Metz at Edward.Metz@ed.gov