CURIO - An Educational Game Toolkit for Primary School Children

The Institute of Digital Games is proud to announce the official launch of CURIO!

CURIO is a 2020 free, educational toolkit funded by Erasmus+. The project and its attending research were led by our own Prof. Stefano Gualeni! It empowers teachers with an interactive virtual world that encourages learning through playful discovery! CURIO's in-class use (via a Local Area Network) aims at fostering curious attitudes towards scientific themes and ideas with a specific focus on primary school students (ages 8-11).

Free Downloadable Educational Material for Teachers

The toolkit, instruction manuals, and didactic material can all be freely downloaded at: www.curioproject.eu
Students can play CURIO in teams, on the Local Area Network of their computer lab at school!

Modular and Customizable Learning Scenarios for Classroom Use

Our toolkit allows for the creation of new experiences and scenarios that teachers can easily author and use in their classes. Through digital interactions with its virtual world, CURIO stimulates creative problem-solving and a more positive attitude towards scientific inquiry and scientific discovery by appealing to the innate sense of curiosity that characterizes human beings.

The CURIO project seeks to integrate traditional teaching curricula with digital learning experiences that, in addition to transferring usable notions, will also provide a supervised, cognitive training ground for acquiring and structuring notions themselves.

When playing CURIO, the students' goal is that of restoring curiosity to a fictional galaxy that has been invaded by the Haze of Confusion. The Haze extends its tendrils across the galaxy, draining the planets’ inhabitants of their enthusiasm for learning. Students play individually, but are sorted into three teams (blue, red and yellow).

HAVE FUN!

More Game-based Learning Resources from the Institute of Digital Games

Games for education are one of the key areas of research for the Institute of Digital Games - University of Malta. We have a number of research projects that bring together artificial intelligence and game-based learning, such as eCrisis and LearnML and of course the current CURIO project. Are you interested in free games that can be used for education? Check out our list of Free Educational Games made at the Institute of Digital Games. We have also curated a list of games to help teach children about Artificial Intelligence.

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The CURIO Team:

Game design and development: Marcello A. Gómez-Maureira (PHI) & Isabelle Kniestedt (PHI)
Game design consultancy and project coordination: Prof. Stefano Gualeni (UM)
Game art: Rebecca Portelli & Suus de Kock
Partners at the University of Malta: Prof. André Xuereb (UM), Prof. Sandra Dingli (UM), & Danielle Farrugia (UM)
Partners at the University of Skövde (Sweden): Prof. Lissa Holloway-Attaway & Dr. Björn Berg-Maklund
Partners at the University of Ca' Foscari of Venezia (Italy): Dr. Barbara Baschiera & Prof. Fiorino Tessaro
Special thanks: Stefano Caselli, David Melhart, Jasper Schellekens (UM), Margarita Iashchina, and the Institute of Digital Games (UM)