Hello Thomas. Thanks for stopping by. We recruit our participates within our area through relationships with schools, youth organizations and University partnerships. The learning goals are exploratory and seek to examine the change in computational thinking, problem solving, data driven decision making, and model based reasoning across four digital media content areas. These content areas include game design, computer graphics, video production and editing, and digital media marketing with data analytics. Our primary objective focuses on awareness, motivation, and attitudes towards STEM career development. However, we have been developing the infrasture and partnerships we believe are necessary for sustainability and scale. These include the development of undergraduate and graduate certification programming, integrated facility upgrades with connections across academic, residential and student leisure activities, event planning, public private partnerships and student led platforms and programs that allow co designed digital productions with industry experts. So the partnership that helped build facilities and programs are cross departmental, including administration, local officials, school district co curriculum development and public private partnerships that will drive academic achievement and career readiness with networking and job placement opportunities. The specifics of these will come out after the camp has been completed this summer and during our communication plan.

Hi Mike. Thanks for reaching out. We will keep in touch with students and see where they are via our social media for now. If they decide to attend our program it will be pretty obvious where they came from. Our intention is to use this opportunity to partner with our local districts and become a resource and develop customized curriculum with them. We will also begin to partner with our in state scholastic Esports organization which we have a great relationship with. We will not attempt to be everything for students but instead build partnerships at the local, admin, school and state levels. We already have amazing organizations and even businesses that we hope to create relationships with. We will design a comprehensive package after the camp is completed.

Hello Rebecca,

Thanks for reaching out. Our population are defined broadly as underrepresented. We have students that live in rural environments, have been out of home placement or out of school placement for various reasons. Broadening participation is giving high end technological access to students that would normally not be able to acquire high end tech tools or facilities on their own and may feel disconnected from school.

The existing level based on our sruveys are very limited even at the collegiate level. As we conducted preliminary and baseline surveys we found that our small general adolescenet population had a limited awareness of the STEM careers that existed in and around the Esports industry. Many of our students are self identified as gamers and that's our cultural relevant component. We want students that identify with that culture and those subcommunities as build an envirionment that maps to their play ecosystems.

Boys and girls do play games at about a 50/50 split. However they generally play and use technology in different ways. Gerber and Abrams work speaks to this in their 2014 book on bridging literacies. I also speak to the ways boys have historically engaged in gaming through my boys and gaming work. This current study does not investigate these differences. Instead it focuses on gaming communities as wholes and subgroups. We speak to entire commnity values and norms regardless of gender. We find that even in the first person shooter space, although known for some toxicity, can be environments where yonug ladies and women can thrive. They find their own subcommunities and game on. There are even initiatives and companies being formed to explicitly fight toxicity in gaming. Consider Game Karma by Andrew and Daisy.

Specifcally to you last point, we build with multiracial, multi-gendered teams. Based on our ongoing work, we find that if we bake full participation and inclusion into the core of the teams that hold leadership positions, we create highly engaging environments, reduce toxicity and increase demand. Our Game Den Unleashed envent is a great example.