Collaboration by Design: Development of a Video Game for Energy Literacy

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Published: May 18, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14434/ijdl.v11i2.24109

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Rebekah Radtke
University of Kentucky
Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez
University of Kentucky
Margaret Mohr-Schroeder
University of Kentucky

Abstract

University students, faculty, and staff from science, engineering, education, entrepreneurship, and design (SEE(E)D) backgrounds developed a video game to leverage outreach efforts promoting sustainability, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ((S)STEM) to underserved students. This was accomplished by transforming a board game—previously developed and used to teach elementary students about complex and often misunderstood energy and sustainability issues—through a collaborative design process. The process of taking a tangible board game into the digital realm required significant design and pedagogical adaptations to maintain student learning outcomes and content delivery. Scientists, educators, and designers strengthened the graphical and pedagogical aspects of the game collaboratively to ultimately expand and deepen the energy literacy of elementary school students. This design case seeks to elucidate the multidisciplinary collaborative design process used by SEE(E)D faculty and researchers as well as students to redesign a board game into a didactic video game that is easier to both deploy and disseminate for the benefit of K-12 students and teachers.

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How to Cite
Radtke, R., Santillan-Jimenez, E., & Mohr-Schroeder, M. (2020). Collaboration by Design: Development of a Video Game for Energy Literacy. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 11(2), 46–54. https://doi.org/10.14434/ijdl.v11i2.24109
Issue
Vol. 11 No. 2 (2020)
Section
Articles

Copyright © 2023 by the International Journal of Designs for Learning, a publication of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and Indiana University. Permission to make digital or hard copies of portions of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page in print or the first screen in digital media. Except as otherwise noted, the content published by IJDL is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. A simpler version of this statement is available here.

Author Biographies

Rebekah Radtke, University of Kentucky

Rebekah Radtke is the Director of International Programs, Director of Graduate Studies, and an assistant professor in the College of Design at the University of Kentucky. Her research investigates how interior design enables social change by applying boundary-spanning pedagogical approaches rather than discipline-specific processes. Since 2011 her transdisciplinary multi-scalar projects produced better living and learning environments and healthy communities in national and international venues. Her collaborative work includes preservation projects in rural China, design-build projects in Brazil, community-activated art interventions in Appalachia, and education-based design initiatives in Lexington, KY.

Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez, University of Kentucky

Eduardo Santillan-Jimenez is a Research Program Manager at the University of Kentucky (UK) Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the UK Department of Chemistry. His current research focuses on the application of heterogeneous catalysis to the production of renewable fuels and chemicals—with emphasis on the upgrading of biomass-derived fats, oils and greases (FOG) to drop-in hydrocarbon fuels—while his synergistic activities include a number of K-20 initiatives designed to enhance and broaden STEM education.

Margaret Mohr-Schroeder, University of Kentucky

Margaret Mohr-Schroeder is a Professor of STEM Education and Associate Dean in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. Since her arrival to UK in 2006, she has been involved in over $17 million in NSF and state funding, helping to expand research and broaden participation in STEM Education. One of her current awards was recently recognized by NSF as a Top 5 model for broadening participation. Her research interests include the transdisciplinary nature of STEM education and how they can be applied to innovative preservice teacher education and K12 school models. Further, she is interested in investigating ways to broaden participation in STEM, especially of underrepresented populations and the effects these mechanisms have on their STEM literacy. Through this work, she has gained perspective on how to create opportunity and access to STEM activities to populations that normally would not have the opportunity and have witnessed and studied the significant effects these mechanisms have.