Team GameGrid is working with Creative Labs at Indiana University to promote system thinking design through an educational game for upper elementary and middle school youth. Systems thinking is the process of understanding how components, regarded as systems, influence one another within a whole. Our goal is to develop an educational game that can help children express their unlimited creativity and gain understanding about how systems work.
In our game, children need to combine components to build their own system. They should consider not only the characters of each component but also the relationship between components. Eventually, children can learn that a system is not a group of components but interconnections between components. In this way, children can have a hands-on experience in system building. We hope this lesson can give children a broader view about how things around them work. With our game, children will enjoy the gameplay while also learning how to think more systemically.
