With all the social and humanitarian crises we are facing as a nation, it’s more important than ever that the next generation is activated toward making a difference. The children are our future, right?
Well, here’s one way that’s happening. Meet Games for Change, which has been facilitating the G4C Challenge, for the last 7 years, offering middle and high school students from across the U.S. the opportunity to use their passion for games and learn about complex social problems, from humanitarian conflicts to climate change and education. Then, they’re challenged to create solutions for these problems by designing social impact games.
The 2022 winners of the national game design competition were recently announced and wow, you have to check them out because it will blow your mind how creative and thoughtful these young minds are (and also it will give you a bit more hope for the future)
For this year’s Challenge, students created digital games that focused on one of the following social impact themes. Here’s a peek at the winners. Talk about impressive (and hopeful).
● Shaping the World for Difference: These games were focused on raising awareness about learning and thinking differences that are often misunderstood (like ADHD and Dyslexia). The Grand Prize winner of this category was Abigail from Evansville, IN with her game About Cerebral Palsy
● Sustainable Cities: These entries were about solutions to the climate crisis and ways we can make our homes, schools, and communities more resilient and sustainable and the National Champion was Drew from Macomb, MI.
● Voice of a New Generation: This category encouraged students to demonstrate the importance of voting, propose solutions to make the process more accessible, and encourage more young people to participate. The winner of this category was Zainab from St. Louis, MO.
You can head over to the G4C Student Challenge Arcade and scroll through all of the categories and actually play the games that the students submitted. Maybe even share this with the middle and high schoolers in your household. And if you are so inspired, you can even check out how to get involved in the 2022-23 G4C Student Challenge.
