SW New Mexico News

The New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service has introduced a new educational resource, the "Learning Games Lab Toolkit," aimed at assisting educators. This initiative comes after two decades of experience in creating educational media and collaborating with youth as testers and co-designers.

NMSU's Innovation Media Research and Extension and Learning Games Lab, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, launched this free online resource in September. The toolkit is designed to share insights on methodologies, lessons, and activities that have been refined since the lab's inception in 2005.

"By formalizing and sharing the 20-year practices of the Learning Games Lab in hosting youth Think Tanks Consultants, we bring our research findings and processes to a larger audience and help others to design related programs," stated Matheus Cezarotto, Educational Technology Extension specialist with Innovative Media Research and Extension. He added that this initiative supports educators and youth program leaders at various levels.

The toolkit provides educators with resources to aid learners in expressing their ideas effectively, using digital tools purposefully, creating meaningful media, understanding social impacts, recognizing game design careers, identifying critical life issues, gaining peer knowledge, and critiquing digital learning tools based on game design components.

"It was created with educators and particularly informal educators, 4-H educators, in mind," said Amanda LaTasha Armstrong from Digital Promise’s Learning Science Research Center. She emphasized that it allows educators to replicate aspects of the Games Lab experience in their own settings flexibly.

The toolkit also details activities involving youth that contributed to past products developed by the lab. These include games like "Theme Park Kitchen," "Night of the Living Debt," "Outbreak Squad," Virtual Insect Collection Lab, "Dr. Eugene’s Biotech Lab," MyPlateMyDay, Stay Safe Working with Horses, Science of Agriculture, and Math Snacks.

For more information or to access the toolkit, visit https://learninggameslabtoolkit.org.