walden, a game EDU
experience summary
click here to learn more about walden, a game
Walden, a game is an exploratory narrative and open world simulation of the life of American philosopher Henry David Thoreau during his experiment in self-reliant living at Walden Pond. The game begins in the summer of 1845 when Thoreau moved to the Pond and built his cabin there.
Walden, a game EDU is an expansion of the original work of art. We adapted the award-winning game into 15-30 minute interactive experiences for middle- and high- school students. Each learning experience, or module, is paired with accompanying curriculum materials, including discussion questions and journaling prompts. This project is a true example of playing and analyzing games as texts, the same way we do with books and movies. In this way, it is perfect for any literature classroom.
my role
✌️ I worked on the Walden, a game EDU team for one year as part of my Annenberg Fellowship at USC.
Educational Liaison
- Worked directly with teachers implementing Walden, a game EDU in their classrooms
- Grew a Facebook group for grassroots educator support from 0 to 100 members
- Led translational communications between teachers (ie. users of the product) and the development team
- Assisted with production tasks on Asana
Curriculum Developer
- Worked with a team of literacy experts and instructional designers
- Designed supporting curriculum for critical geography module “Where I Lived” and anti-slavery social studies module “Civil Disobedience”
- Assisted with character writing
QA Assistant
- Testing character interactions
- Bug reporting to the design team
tools used
- Asana
- Google Suite
- Adobe Premiere
- Facebook Groups
project awards
- Winner: Gold Award at the Serious Play Conference, 2022
- Finalist: James Paul Gee Awards, 2021