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Middle School Students Learn First-Hand About the Business of Video Games
July 2, 2021 -- If you thought the students who signed up for esports this summer at Columbus City Schools were just going to play video games for six straight weeks, think again.
“My students aren’t playing games, no, no, no,” said teacher Angela Glenn. “These students are learning about the world of competitive video gaming and how to design video games. That’s work, not fun and games.”
Esports is a fast-growing international phenomenon with millions of fans and billions of dollars at stake. Esports is also part of the curriculum at K-12 schools across the nation. Esports programs are offered at 18 colleges and universities here in Ohio.
At CCS, esports is also a six-week class offered for the first time this summer to students in grades 6-8 at Berwick Alternative and South 7-12. The course teaches students how to set up a competitive video game and establish the skill level, platform, theme, tagline, and graphics. One student shared, it’s a lot more complicated than he thought.
Recently the students in Glenn’s class spoke to an esports winner via Zoom. The 15-year-old boy told the middle school students he just won $200,000 playing esports. As Glenn walked around her classroom, she gave students a writing assignment.
“Write down what you would do if you won $200,000,” said Glenn. “How would you spend your money?” One student wrote down that he would buy a house for his family.
Down the hall in another esports classroom, teacher Victoria Quiring is walking around her classroom instructing her students about picking a theme. “Remember your video game has to have a theme,” said Quiring. “It could be fantasy, mystery, or western. Look at other video games and try to determine the theme of that game? What worked and why?”
Zayvion Benton is leading his esports group. “This is so cool,” said Benton. “We are thinking of going with a medieval theme for our video game. We can have knights, horses, kings, dragons, and castles. That would make it complicated. You would have to have a strategy to compete.”
Partnering with the Past Foundation and The Ohio State University, this is the first summer CCS has offered interdisciplinary design courses. Students have to solve a challenge using math, entrepreneurship, communications, project management, and design thinking during the six-week session.
Esports is a unique method to boost math, science, and technology literacy while helping students develop communication and collaboration skills. The results in just six weeks are valuable lifelong lessons that extend well beyond the classroom. This summer, students are together again, and no one is alone in this project-based learning.