Collaborative Research: Strategies: STEMware - Designing Immersive Biology Learning Simulations for Formal and Informal Settings

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The STEMware project is employing teams of educators, students, and scientists to develop serious, immersive 3D gaming software for use by secondary students and teachers in biology. The gaming simulations, user manual, supplemental curriculum, and companion web site will address modern topics in biology, such as bioinformatics, genomics, and biotechnology. The products will be distributed to schools, homes, and afterschool programs across the nation. The goal of the project is to increase student interest in and understanding of modern issues in biology and careers in bioscience. The project is distributing at least 7,000 copies of STEMware nationwide, providing 36 formal and informal science educators and 36 students in California with 60 hours of professional or youth development via summer workshops and Saturday follow-up sessions during the school year, and offering half-day STEMware training conferences for an additional 800 educators across the nation who will impact thousands of students. Collaborating partners include science departments at the University of California (UC)-Davis and UC-Berkeley, the UC-Davis School of Education, the 4-H Science, Engineering and Technology program, the Biotechnology Teacher Support Network, the California Afterschool Network, and several regional STEM-focused companies.