This SBIR Phase II project studies the technological and economic problems associated with providing the market with effective high school level educational games. At a time when the economy needs a workforce with strong scientific skills, U.S. students are performing poorly on international science tests. Game-based learning has been proven to improve science learning; however, companies have struggled to economically develop effective games capable of delivering enough customer value. This project uses a new model for developing science games to overcome this struggle by creating an immersive, highly engaging, action-adventure game with a female protagonist caught up in a save-the-world narrative battling aliens. The game covers the entire high school chemistry curriculum and is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. The benefits of this project are economic as well as educational. Technology and science are the engines for continued innovation and economic growth. STEM workers not only create ideas and products that improve the quality of all citizens' lives, but also earn high wages and create new jobs that contribute significantly to the tax base. By providing high school students with effective instruction in science, this project is helping to ensure continued innovation and the growth of the U.S. economy. This project will design and develop a classroom-ready game-based high school course in chemistry. It will be a turn-key learning solution that covers the entire high school course curriculum, is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, tracks student performance, allows for differentiated instruction, and accommodates various curricular structures and schedules. The innovation is not that the course is a videogame; rather, the project's differentiators are instructional, technological, and economic. The first innovation is that the learning and the game mechanics are totally fused; educational content is transformed into game mechanics so that every game action becomes a learning event. The second innovation is designing a replicable module template that allows the team to develop new topic modules in a timely manner. This expandable design feature enables coverage the full curriculum of high school chemistry-something no educational gaming firm has been able to accomplish. The third innovation is a new business model for serious gaming that minimizes risk for module generation. The replicable module design greatly reduces the cost of creating a new module. As a result, the all-important risk/reward ratio is dramatically improved, and therefore the potential for successful commercialization, future production, and bottom line also dramatically increases.
