Immersive Educational Game Simulations to Enhance Understanding of Corn-Water-Ethanol-Beef System Nexus

作为在非正式环境中加强学习的总体战略的一部分，食品、能源和水系统(INFEWS)和推进非正式STEM学习(AISL)计划的创新合作，旨在支持创新模式，准备在非正式环境中催化良好整合的跨学科研究和发展努力，改变对食品、能源和水系统(FEWS)关系的科学理解，以改善系统功能和管理，解决系统压力，提高复原力，并确保可持续性。该项目通过使用系统思维和跨学科集成方法来实现这一目标，开发了一种新颖的沉浸式教育模拟游戏和相关材料，旨在突出玉米-水-乙醇-牛肉(CWEB)系统在支持美国日益增长的食品、能源和水需求方面的作用和重要性。对FEWS和可持续能源的关注与INFEWS计划和AISL计划组合中与可持续发展相关的规模较大的项目都非常一致。专门针对CWEB系统的多用户游戏的开发和广泛传播对于项目组合及其必要的研究领域都是特别创新的贡献和进步。这个游戏的另一个独特之处是，将不同程度的经济原则和决策以及令人讨厌的文化背景嵌入其中，作为影响系统思维的显著变量。值得注意的是，内布拉斯加州大学林肯分校的一个由计算机科学、管理和工程学本科生组成的团队将负责这款游戏的工程、开发和部署，作为他们大学的顶峰项目。如果成功，这款游戏将对非正式项目(即4-H俱乐部)的青少年、农业职业教育课程的高中教师和学生、大学生和公众产生重大影响。影响可能远远超出内布拉斯加州和目标中西部地区。在开发游戏的同时，将由一名外部评估员进行形成性和总结性混合方法评估。对这款游戏的形成性评估将侧重于可用性测试、兴趣和与当地4-H俱乐部和青年日营中选定的青年样本的参与度。数据将从嵌入的游戏内调查问卷、评分表、观察和使用评估样本进行的焦点小组中收集。这些数据和反馈将被用来为游戏的设计和改进提供信息。终结性评估将集中在比赛的整体影响上。农业系统知识、对农业系统的态度、在农业系统中追求职业生涯的兴趣和决策的变化将与内布拉斯加州国家科学标准保持一致，并使用全国农业扫盲成果(NALOS)评估、游戏分析和对评估研究样本实施的前后测试措施进行跟踪。

As part of an overall strategy to enhance learning within informal environments, the Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems (INFEWS) and Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) programs partnered to support innovative models poised to catalyze well-integrated interdisciplinary research and development efforts within informal contexts that transform scientific understanding of the food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) nexus in order to improve system function and management, address system stress, increase resilience, and ensure sustainability. This project addresses this aim by using systems thinking and interdisciplinary integration approaches to develop a novel immersive educational simulation game and associated materials designed to highlight the role and importance of corn-water-ethanol-beef (CWEB) systems in supporting the ever increasing demands for food, energy, and water in the United States. The focus on FEWS and sustainable energy aligns well with both the INFEWS program and the sizable sustainability-related projects in the AISL program portfolio. The development and broad dissemination of a multiuser game specific to CWEB systems are particularly innovative contributions and advance for both program portfolios and their requisite fields of study. An additional unique feature of the game is the embedding of varying degrees of economic principles and decision-making along with the nuisances of cultural context as salient variables that influence systems thinking. Of note, a team of computer science, management and engineering undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln will be responsible for the engineering, development, and deployment of the game as their university capstone projects. If successful, this game will have a significant reach and impact on youth in informal programs (i.e., 4-H clubs), high school teachers and students in agriculture vocational education courses, college students, and the public. The impact could extend well beyond Nebraska and the targeted Midwestern region. In conjunction with the game development, mixed-methods formative and summative evaluations will be conducted by an external evaluator. The formative evaluation of the game will focus on usability testing, interest and engagement with a select sample of youth at local 4-H clubs and youth day camps. Data will be collected from embedded in-game survey questionnaires, rating scales, observations and focus groups conducted with evaluation sample. These data and feedback will be used to inform the design and refinement of the game. The summative evaluation will focus on the overall impacts of the game. Changes in agricultural systems knowledge, attitudes toward agricultural systems, interest in pursuing careers in agricultural systems, and decision making will be aligned with the Nebraska State Science Standards and tracked using the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALOs) assessment, game analytics and pre/post-test measures administered to the evaluation study sample pre/post exposure to the game.