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The Entertainment Software Association Foundation (ESAF) is ready for summer and excited for E3 2014, the world’s premier trade show for computer and video games. From June 10-12, ESAF will be at E3 to talk about our programs and our grantees’ important work.

Throughout 2014, our grantees have been leveraging video games and game technology to improve education. This edition of the ESAF newsletter highlights the inspiring work of two grantees: Bootstrap and the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles.

Thank you for supporting our programs and helping ESAF continue to make a positive difference in the lives of America’s youth. For updates on our programming and grantees’ activities, be sure to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Warm regards,

Jenny Lai
Vice President, ESA Foundation

Grantee Spotlight: Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles

Serving more than 40,000 girls in the Los Angeles area from all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles (GSGLA) is one of the leading girl-serving nonprofits in the region. Today, with ESAF’s support, GSGLA is using video games to engage young girls in STEM subjects.

Partnering with Women in Games International (WIGI) and E-Line Media, GSGLA developed the Video Game Designer Patch Program, a series of workshops that teach fourth and fifth-grade girls how to design, develop, and program games. The initiative aims to help young girls develop critical thinking and problem solving skills, bolster creativity, learn to work collaboratively, receive an introduction to the life of a game designer, and understand what it means to be a woman in the video game industry.

The efforts of GSGLA, WIGI, and E-Line Media come at an important time. While women make up half of the U.S. workforce, they are severely underrepresented in STEM careers, with fewer than 22 percent of women working in those fields. With the Video Game Designer Patch Program, GSGLA hopes to educate young girls about the many career opportunities available to them and influence more women to consider STEM jobs.

Scouts Participate in the Video Game Designer Patch Program

As part of the Video Game Designer Patch Program, GSGLA is conducting a total of seven hands-on game design workshops across the Los Angeles area through 2014. The workshops provide young girls with an introduction to game design and the video game industry at large. Participants will also learn about the various roles and disciplines in the video game industry from leading women in the field, who will serve as lecturers during the workshops. To expand the reach of the initiative, GSGLA has developed a customizable lesson plan for individual troop leaders, who can offer the Video Game Designer Patch Program to their scouts and tailor the curriculum to meet their local needs.

The program has already seen tremendous success. Girls participating in the initiative say that before entering the program, they had not realized that designing their own game could be even more fun than playing games.

For more information about the Video Game Designer Patch Program, watch WIGI’s video about the initiative and click here.

Grantee Spotlight: Brown University’s Bootstrap Program

For teachers like Adam Newall – a middle school math teacher in Pembroke, MA – teaching algebra and geometry is made easier with the help of Bootstrap. Created by Brown University, Bootstrap is an innovative curriculum that uses computer and game programming to teach math concepts to students ages 12-16. The curriculum challenges students to program computer games using purely algebraic and geometric concepts.

“[Bootstrap] opens students to the idea that they can learn math, and that it’s not something that’s meant to torture people,” said Newall. “They learn that math is something that is real and relevant and that they can use it.”

With ESAF’s support, Bootstrap has been integrated into more than 120 schools across the country. Most recently, Bootstrap expanded to the West Coast and completed a pilot program in Oakland, CA, public schools. Two Oakland Public School system teachers who successfully integrated Bootstrap into their classrooms have been invited to present at the Computer Science Teachers Association’s annual conference in St. Charles, IL, in July, where they will share their results and overall experience. In addition, Brown University recently announced a new partnership with Code.org and the New York City Foundation for Computer Science Education to further promote Bootstrapamong teachers and provide them with related tools and materials.

Bootstrap aligns with the Common Core math standards and provides an engaging and rewarding experience for its users.

“My students are learning that doing something well – doing it carefully, accurately, with perfect precision – can actually be fun,” said Katrien Vance, a middle school math teacher who uses the program. “Bootstrap has given my math students a glimpse of a future for themselves, one that includes fun, success, and, surprisingly to them, math.”

Oakland Students Use Bootstrap to Make Games

With Bootstrap, researchers and educators hope to harness students’ excitement around video games to ignite their passion for topics and careers in science, engineering, technology, and math (STEM).

“Research has found that kids change the way they talk about math right around this age. They go from saying, ‘Math is hard,’ to saying, ‘I can’t do math,’” said Shriram Krishnamurthi, professor at Brown University and co-creator of Bootstrap. “That’s the point where kids make the decision to drop out of algebra…We’d like to get to them before they make that decision to drop out, so they can keep their options open.”

For more information about Bootstrap, please visit Bootstrapworld.org.