STEM Through Games / 2023
Updates
About STEM Through Games
STEM through Games aims, first and foremost, to introduce high school students to data literacy and computational thinking skills in a fun and engaging setting. Games offer an innovative opportunity for educators and learners to overcome difficult concepts. While learning to design and develop games, students will work closely in collaboration with peers, guided by direct oversight from our undergraduate instructors. Furthermore, games offer a creative way to code, problem solve, as well as a tool to call attention to broader social problems in our communities.
High school computer science curriculum, as it stands, often lacks in its approach to teaching students creative problem solving. Instead, high-school classes emphasize a logical, bottom-up approach that does not prepare CS students for the innovative nature of computational work.
In our pilot year, high school students from the Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy will undertake a two-semester-long experience that will include weekend workshops where participants will work with Pitt’s faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students to learn the fundamentals of game design and basic programming skills starting with visual programming tools such as Visual Studio Code and progress to more complex environments such as the Unity3D game engine.
The program will culminate in a summary analysis and report on lessons and strategies learned. Results will be shared within the Pittsburgh community and broadly through academic conference presentations and publications.
