National Academy of Sciences awards GameDesk grant to develop Xbox Kinect geoscience game

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As part of its Science and Entertainment Exchange, the National Academy of Sciences announced that the GameDesk Institute is the winner of the 2011 Science, Entertainment, and Education Grant. The grant will support GameDesk’s Science in Motion project, an “embodied” game for the iPad, Xbox Kinect, and SMALLab system covering middle and high school geoscience standards.

The project benefits from the support of multiple collaborators—the GameDesk Institute, LucasArts Entertainment, University of Southern California, Tectonics Observatory at Caltech, California Science Teachers of the Year, and the New York Hall of Science. “To date, there have been very few efforts to create genuine partnerships among the scientific, entertainment, and education communities,” said Ralph J. Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our review panel believes that the Science in Motion project is an excellent opportunity to bring together those communities to build a very unique and powerful educational experience.”

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GameDesk is a 501(c)3 nonprofit research, development, and outreach organization that seeks to rethink learning through play, making, and interaction.

We look to transform the learning experience, help close the achievement gap, and deeply engage students in learning core curriculum.

The organization (originally developed out of research and support at the University of Southern California's IMSC) has now been in development, practice, and/or evaluation for over four years in various schools, learning centers, and homes nationally.