Games are engaging for children, and educational games make learning fun. Scholars have conducted research on how games help kids learn, but little is known about the specific ways that children’s mental models of real world concepts change through playing games. This study specifically investigates the process of how children learn STEM principles through exploring real world STEM concepts integrated into games. This ongoing research is being conducted with cohorts of middle schoolers in the King County area. Current games include Dragonwood, a card game with elements of probability, a Dungeons and Dragons campaign structured with elements of physics, and a STEM systems game called Oxygen Not Included. As the participants play these games, we ask them questions about their actions, interpretation of the game space, and why they make certain choices within the games. In doing so, we hope to understand the specific learning processes and parts of the game that change their understanding. Through qualitative analysis we are identifying trends in the students’ responses. We expect to find insight into learning through games and particular components in games that are beneficial for learning STEM concepts. This research has implications for educational game design and delivery. Our findings could impact the use of games in classrooms and provide insight for the development of educational games. This research could further make STEM learning more accessible and engaging for children.

Addressing bias in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems is crucial for ensuring fairness, transparency, and ethical integrity. This study introduces a pioneering interdisciplinary approach, blending advanced computational methods with social sciences insights to tackle the multifaceted nature of bias. Through a mixed methods strategy that combines quantitative and qualitative data, we scrutinize algorithmic outcomes and conduct different case studies of stakeholders—developers, users, and communities affected by AI/ML biases. Our initial findings indicate that bias transcends technical boundaries, manifesting as a complex socio-technical dilemma that demands both algorithmic adjustments and societal reforms. We highlight specific biases, such as gender and racial disparities in recruitment algorithms and facial recognition technologies, underscoring the critical need for our research. To address these biases, we propose adopting data enhancement techniques, fairness-focused learning algorithms, and promoting explainable AI practices. Inspired by influential figures like Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, and Cathy O'Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction, we emphasize the importance of inclusive datasets and critically examining opaque algorithms. Our future efforts concentrate on developing comprehensive guidelines to reduce AI/ML biases and exploring the broader societal impacts of establishing unbiased AI and ML systems. By cultivating more equitable and ethical AI and ML frameworks, our research aims to meet the diverse needs of global communities, setting a new standard for responsible AI development.

The world is in dire condition and our energy and environmental future need to be secured. Through a historical look at the field of Futures Studies, the World's Fairs, the Hanford Site, and solar power, we will gain insights on how to implement R. Buckminster Fuller's framework of Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science to address future energy and environmental challenges. This literature review analyzes Fuller's essay "Humanity's Critical Path: From Weaponry to Livingry" (1983) and its implications for the future. Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Science, as conceptualized by R. Buckminster Fuller, is an approach that begins with the entirety of a system, anticipates future needs, and applies accumulated knowledge to create an omnicooperative society. Examining two of Fuller's artifacts — the World Game and Dymaxion Map — we gain insight into how to give everyone access to a global accounting system of resources available to inform future policy decisions. From this research, we learn how to leverage Design Science to change our projected future. Through an exploration of the Hanford Site, we gain an understanding of what dangers nuclear technology poses. A detailed overview of the World's Fairs and those involved in strategic national planning projects informs how past decisions were made that led to this dire situation. This work seeks to determine whether observing the development of solar energy technology can conserve our petroleum reserves, fissionable materials, and transition our society to the participatory, sustainable, and renewable future that Fuller envisioned. This research unveils the significance of Fuller's ideas by addressing the risks and benefits of nuclear technologies and alternative renewable energy sources that could be employed. Further research into Fuller's concepts at the intersection of complex energy solutions and sustainability will provide us with feasible options to our dire climate crisis.

Prominent author and civil rights activist James Baldwin (1924-1987) has found new life on social media in the context of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. BLM is a social and political movement of protests, advocacy, and online activism spanning the past decade. Following incidents of violence and racial discrimination against the Black community, Twitter has been a platform for facilitating societal change, and a significant portion of BLM unfolded on this active forum. Through a comprehensive text analysis of relevant tweets during BLM, our team uncovered notable activity connecting James Baldwin to BLM, current and historical events, and other cultural phenomena that influenced this online discourse. We organized large datasets of various Tweets and dissected their timelines from 2013-2023 to reveal keyword frequencies, engagement, and the prevalence of Baldwin references and quotes, connecting them with ongoing cultural and political contexts. By examining Twitter activity surrounding James Baldwin in the past decade, we wanted to understand how Baldwin’s work contributed to shifts in engagement and public sentiment during this time. Our hypotheses included increased discussions of the author’s work during times of political events and incidents of violence against the Black community. By creating timeline visualizations in Python, we uncovered spikes in engagement and public sentiment of historical events during crucial incidents of the movement, demonstrating how historical literary figures play a role in contemporary digital spaces. We used different language processing techniques for categorizing tweets and extracting patterns. We specifically measured retweet frequencies, hashtag usage, documented valuable keywords, and direct quotes and excerpts from Baldwin’s writing. Our findings provide valuable insights into social media and serve as a resource to understand online perspectives of literature, trends, politics, and social justice.

Gaming is a well-defined experience of play, but it has not been thoroughly explored in media studies. Although methods to preserve games focus on console games or emulation, they lack focus on preserving the gaming experience as a whole, especially the context of play. Preserving the user’s engagement with a game beyond playing the game itself is limited because many of these experiences occur outside of the game world. Cultural institutions such as libraries, museums, and archives cannot preserve every game and gameplay experience due to time and financial constraints. Scholars have suggested using player-generated content such as walkthroughs and let’s plays as a preservation solution. These videos are already available online, making it unnecessary for cultural heritage institutions to create them from scratch. The question is: how can we use player-generated gameplay content to assist in the preservation of games? To answer this, a content analysis was conducted. 31 YouTube channels were randomly sampled, with 10 videos from each channel. The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of online gaming communities and ludic activities and their implications for future frameworks of knowledge organization. With gameplay content on YouTube growing rapidly, it is important to conduct this research before the rate of new content becomes too overwhelming to keep up with.