Current Seminars Events

The Wisconsin Materials Research Science and Engineering Center collaborated with the Field Day Lab to host a workshop for middle school teachers to learn about and brainstorm ideas for educational video games based on materials science. The teachers came up with several game ideas based upon teaching challenges they have in the classroom.Sarah Sprangers, a Madison area middle school teacher, said educational video games would provide another way for teachers to connect with their students. “Technology is such an integral part of their lives,” she said. “It seems only natural and important to include that in the classroom.”The next step is to align these ideas with the ideas that were developed by MRSEC participants at the October 2016 Breakthrough in Education Workshop (BREW) to come up with at least two game ideas that the Field Day will start developing. Click here to watch a video by NBC15 WMTV, who covered the workshop.

On October 28, 73 members of the Wisconsin MRSEC came together for the fifth annual Breakthrough Research and Education Workshop (BREW).  The BREW began with a lunchtime talk by David Gagnon, the new MRSEC Associate Education Director and an expert in educational game theory and design. David tasked participants with finding “toys, puzzles, stories, or simulations” in the research highlights presented by members of each IRG following David’s talk. After all three IRGs presented their recent advances in research from the previous year, MRSEC members assembled into inter-IRG groups for the Education Workshop part of the BREW.  In total the groups brainstormed 15 game ideas and 8 more fully developed game concepts; all inspired by the MRSEC research talks. These game ideas and concepts will be used as the basis for the “Game On Cohort”, a group of teacher fellows who will work with the MRSEC to develop and evaluate classroom ready digital games.