On February 8th, 2023, the Next Level Lab hosted a presentation by Steven Isaacs, Education Program Manager with Epic Games, and Benjamin (Ben) Kelly, Educator with Anglophone East School District in New Brunswick, Canada. Faculty Director of the Next Level Lab, Dr. Tina Grotzer, situated Steven and Benjamin’s presentation in larger discussions of climate and the planet, specifically the role gaming for the planet could play in addressing the climate challenges ahead of us.
With a title slide that read, “Using Fortnite Creative to Imagine Solutions to Real World Problems,” Steven opened up by discussing his role in supporting teachers (of all experience levels with gaming) in bringing gaming technologies to the classroom and building the next generation of creators using these industry standard tools. With over 20 years in the classroom and a love of personalizing learning through technologies, Steven detailed his journey towards game-based learning and the growing importance of leveraging technology to create meaningful and engaging learning experiences.
As a technology teacher first and foremost, Ben described how his passion grew into an expertise in using technology in the classroom. After spearheading the first educational drone program in Canada among many other innovative classroom uses of technology, he encountered the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and quickly became an ambassador for putting them into action in the classroom. For Ben, game-based learning was the ideal approach ripe with many possibilities for addressing such complex issues.
Licensing and Publishing at Epic Games
Given that more people may be familiar with the publishing side of Epic Games, which has produced famous titles like Guitar Hero and Fortnite, Steven went on to describe the licensing side of the company, which links to the tools that can be leveraged for learning. For context, Steven explained just the sheer reach of Epic Games. Fortnite is currently the most played video on the planet with over 2.8 billion users and over 3.8 billion days played across their user base.
The licensing arm of Epic Games offers their industry standard tools and platforms (like Unreal Engine or Twinmotion) to serve a greater audience beyond games across various sectors and industries. For Fortnite Creative, their goal is to build a player to creator pipeline, by offering products and opportunities to deepen players’ interests and skills in the game industry given the growing need for these skills, as the demand greatly outpaces the available workforce.
Steven further framed essential elements of their game-based learning design, such as a focus on student agency and expertise, as well as cross-curricular approaches that provide students with the chance to explore and deepen their understanding through immersive, world-building opportunities in a sandbox gaming experience.
Creating Solutions to Real World Problems: UN Sustainable Development Goals
After reading the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Ben developed lessons to encourage students to address the SDG targets through Fortnite Creative’s platforms. Ben stressed the importance of getting as many students involved as possible in developing creative solutions, given the scale and real consequences if the SGDs go unaddressed. By grappling with rising sea-levels, community accessibility needs, as well as fostering economic growth in impoverished areas, Ben’s lessons have exposed students to the complexity of these problems in an immersive way. Critically, these experiences act as conduits for important, nuanced conversations that otherwise might be difficult to access through more standard teaching methods.
Sharing that he was able to run these games on thirteen-year-old computers, Ben discussed potential solutions to concerns around how accessible these platforms are given the financial barriers schools may have to accessing up-to-date classroom technology, especially in computer labs.
After sharing a demonstration of the mechanics, elements, and assets that are a part of these gaming experiences, curricular design possibilities beyond STEM education were highlighted. For example, after 7th graders in New Brunswick, Canada finish a lesson on empowerment, world cultures, and global communities, Ben shared a proposed use of Fortnite Creative to build their “island” or “space” for the coming metaverse. He stated that this was a way for students to leverage their newfound knowledge of the past to shape the future.
To close, Steven highlighted some of the broader lessons offered by Fortnite Creative to support educators in participating in STEM related educational events like Code.org’s Hour of Code, which encourages students and educators around the world to spend one hour coding. Their game-based offerings covered a broad range of topics from music production to conditional statements, each only an hour long with extension activities for students interested in expanding their learning.
For both Steven and Ben, there was a focus on making these lessons accessible and valuable for teachers of all experiences by including lesson plans and teacher guides, while aligning the curriculum to either The Association for Science Teacher Education (ASTE) or the Computer Science Teacher Association (CSTA) standards. Overall, these two educators stressed the value of game-based learning in the face of growing future markets, shifting social-political priorities in the face of climate challenges, and the reality of the scope and scale of playership with 83% of females and 97% of males between ages 13-17 in the U.S. playing games regularly. Game-based learning is here and here to stay.
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by Mari Longmire, NLL Research Assistant