weSolve Global Youth Challenges

Progress report & Recommendations

Forward

Carolyn Harris,Center for Climate Systems Research

July 7, 2011

weSolve Mission

Get youth ready to do real work for ensuring a peaceful, productive and sustainable planet - through games that make the world better

Image: World Bank’s EVOKE video game “a 10-week crash course on how to change the world.”

The Urgent Need

Help youth develop “survival” skills for today’s globally and digitally connected world:

‣ problem-solving ‣ critical and creative thinking‣ adapting ‣ collaborating‣ perspective-taking‣ communication‣ initiative to take action

“preparing our youth for the future, includes but is greater than preparing them for work and ensuring college readiness” (the focus of education reform).

Veronica Boix-Mansilla, Harvard School of Education

The Urgent NeedMost kids are not being prepared for the realities of a globally interdependent society

‣ Human impacts and tipping points on the planet that we are on the verge of passing on to our children, with irreversible consequences

‣ Real solutions to take on the big problems of climate change and poverty

‣ Interplay between science and society

all children will be left behind if their education is not organized with a global context in mind

Stephanie Bell-Rose, Goldman Sachs Foundation

Today’s kids are digital natives, yet most ways we prepare them for their future are disconnected from the technologies transforming the world

weSolve can make a big impact on youth

Jane McGonigal, Game Designer, Creative Director of EVOKE

social impact gaming may be the next frontier in learning and helping to address the world’s great problems

Educational opportunity in online games

“A way of capitalizing on this new tool that offers the scale to engage people from all types of sectors, communities and perspectives on a single core issue. The implications for social good then seem immense.”

Forbes.com, CSR Blog, June 17, 2011

Improve access youth, ages 13-18, have to 21st learning, by providing:

an online community to engage in global problem-solving about climate change and sustainable development via social impact games with peers and educators and supported by interactions with GISS and CEI researchers and our colleagues

learning that is collaborative, digital and inspiring

The ideaengage - learn - act

The ideaengage - learn - act

Game experiences and game design competitions, supported by lessons and teacher e-courses, to learn about these intergenerational challenges and develop the capacity and initiative for global understanding and citizenship

learning that is active, relevant and fun

The ideaengage - learn - act

Youth initiated service projects to act on global understandings and use weSolve networks to educate others and to get involved as agents of change in the community.

learning focused connecting learning to the world

WESOLVE CAN CREATE GAMES THAT MATTER

•GISS/CEI join other leaders in providing a case study/model to the global education experiment in social gaming. [e.g., World Bank, WFO, USAID, White House, NEA, NEH, Microsoft, Zynga, MacArthur, ITVS, Games4Change]

•Connect youth around the world in global problem-solving games and shared skills, knowledge, values and solutions

•Create a global community of youth, educators, and practitioners to put good solutions to big problems to work

Building a weSolve game team

GISS and CEI - content, problems, scenarios, mentors

Producer and Publisher - development and dissemination

Creative Director - design

Software Developer - technical architecture

Media partner - dissemination and public awareness

Learning Advisers - grounding in research and evaluation

Education Networks - players and community

Corporate/Foundation - education strategy and funding

Who’s interested

“I think the next level of activism and education is not to be found through the simple use of social networks, but rather the convergence of social networks and serious games.”

• Developer of Peacemaker - more than a million players

• Host of Games4Change Festival, the “Sundance for Games.”

• Consulting: White House on National STEM Video Game Challenge and Half the Sky Project

Asi Burak, co-president, Games for Change

weSolve Role: Game Producer/Publisher

Who is interested?

The World Bank EVOKE Game

EVOKE was developed by the World Bank Institute, the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank Group, and directed by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal. The game began on March 3, 2010 and ended on May 12, 2010. Natron Baxter Applied Gaming, software developer.

weSolve Roles: Creative Director, Software Developer, Award-winning Platform

• nearly 20,000 people

• 150 countries

• 23,500 blog post• 2010 Social Game of the Year

ABOUT EVOKE

EVOKE REFLECTIONSSTRONG EFFECT ON

Developing new ideas about global challengesDeveloping new ideas about local challengesLearning about potential solutions to….Learning about people in other countriesLearning about sustainability

LIMITATIONS TO ADDRESS

Did not build a global network Mobile device users could not access game Limited social interactions across schools and users in different placesInvestigations did not include data analysis or considering alternate viewsScenarios and play fell short of complex problem-solving experience -decision-making with trade-offs, risk-benefits, rewards

Who is Interested?

Veronica Boix-Mansilla,PI, Harvard Project Zero

•Co-author of the recent Asia Society and CCSSO report: Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage in the World

•Examines and assesses how people develop complex understandings

•Consults with such groups as: OAS, International Baccalaureate and TakingItGlobalweSolve Role:

Learning Adviser (Global Skills and Evaluation)

Who is interested?

Richard Duschl, Penn State School of Education

•One of the most respected researchers in science education in the US and world

•Acclaimed author of Restructuring Science Education

•NRC Chair, Report on Teaching Science Inquiry

•Research interests - how scientific knowledge develops, application of history in science, developing curricula about complex topics

weSolve Role: Learning Adviser (science)

Who is interested?

Develop teachers’ capacity and materials for teaching students about great moral issues to combat bigotry and promote democracy through civic eduction

•Global network of more than 2,000 schools

•Curriculum and teaching model

weSolve Role: School Network /Learning Adviser

‣Recruit remaining partners‣Secure start-up funding, 350K‣Thought-leader roundtable ‣Game R&D workshop (Games4Change)‣Secure 3-year funding, team proposal‣e-community game R&D, crowdsource‣Pilot weSolve beta game and revise‣4-week game event‣Youth game design competition‣Assessment and white paper

A WAY FORWARD

Funding ProspectsAMD Foundation - Changing the Game

Kaufman Foundation - STEM, Future Game Designer Comp.

Goldman Sachs - education investment in women

MacArthur Digital Media & Learning

Cisco - Teachers Without Boarders

World Bank

CrowdStar Games

Competitions: Carnegie Corp. Change Makers, Houghton Mifflin Global Education Challenge