The year 5th grade students began the year with a gaming unit. The culminating event for this unit will be designing your own game, using the Thinking and Learning Design Process. The first step in the process is exploration. The girls reviewed various types of games like home made video games, arcade games, and board games.
As part of the gaming exploration we also visited the Baltimore Museum of Industry. While there, the students participated in two exhibits:
Design It: Balls & Tracks which is a STEAM related program where the students get into small groups to build and test roller coasters. We will focus on collaborative work and parts to a whole.
Video Game Wizards: Playing games is fun, but the real fun lies in making them. In this interactive, hands-on program, students race against the clock to design their own board game, determining rules, sequencing, and special powers. Using critical thinking skills, the think creatively as a group in order to develop an innovative and enjoyable game -- just like the real life game developers featured in the Video Game Wizards exhibition.
