NMSU Learning Games Lab named 2024 IP Award recipient

Original Article | Tiffany Acosta | tfrank@nmsu.edu | April 29, 2024

The Learning Games Lab team, part of the Department of Innovative Media Research and Extension in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University, has been awarded the 2024 Intellectual Property Award presented by NMSU’s Arrowhead Center and the Office of Research, Creativity and Economic Development.

The award was presented during a ceremony April 26 at the Bobby Lee Lawrence Wine Academy at Gerald Thomas Hall, and recognizes NMSU faculty or staff who have developed intellectual property and demonstrated work to realize societal, industrial and commercial benefits.

“Our team was surprised and honored to be recognized by Arrowhead with this award,” said Amy Smith Muise, Innovative Media Research and Extension editor. “Over the years, we have benefited tremendously from Arrowhead’s expertise and guidance on technology licensing. They have been with us every step of the way as we explored avenues to reach larger audiences with our games and multimedia tools.

“We embarked on this process of setting up revenue sharing licensing agreements with more confidence due to the support of Patricia Marquez Knighten, who helped orient us, negotiate terms, and bring agreements through legal counsel,” Smith Muise said.

The ceremony coincided with World Intellectual Property Day, which is celebrated annually April 26 to highlight the role of intellectual property rights in encouraging rights and creativity. The Intellectual Property Office at Arrowhead Center assists the NMSU faculty and staff in obtaining patents to protect their innovative discoveries.

“NMSU encourages innovation, creativity and the protection of original innovations for the purpose of commercializing to share them with the broadest distribution,” said Patricia Knighten, director of Innovation Commercialization at Arrowhead Center. “This enables NMSU to touch communities near and far. The Learning Games Lab team has developed numerous educational products, using their research to make an impact. Many of these products are licensed for educational purposes. The significance of this award is that it is a commercial license on a global platform and will be accessed in multiple languages, to a worldwide community. This exemplifies our vision of broad, international impact, as well as revenue generation for the university”

For more than 20 years, NMSU’s Learning Games Lab team has developed science-based, computer-enhanced educational programs. The Learning Games Lab has trademarked Math Snacks and copyrights for 14 games, four interactive programs, four apps, one app suite, Virtual Insect Collection Lab, Science of Agriculture Series and Food Safety Virtual Labs.

“We take our land-grant mission seriously: to improve the lives of citizens through research-based information. We believe we can do that best through more than 40 games and interactive tools copyrighted New Mexico State University, which are played millions of times each year,”  Innovative Media Research and Extension Department Head Barbara Chamberlin said.

The Learning Games Lab team of instructional designers, educators, animators, programmers and online learning specialists create tools and games for diverse populations in New Mexico and beyond. The Learning Games Lab team also includes faculty who conduct research on media development and support meaningful uses of technology in New Mexico Cooperative Extension Service.

“Barbara Chamberlin and the Learning Games Lab team are creating fun and interesting products that improve the learning experience for not only students in New Mexico but across the country,” College of ACES Dean Rolando Flores Galarza said. “We are extremely proud of the work they are producing. The IP Award is a well-deserved honor.”

In December 2023, Math Snacks became available on Game Learning thanks to a commercial licensing agreement that Arrowhead Center helped facilitate.

“The partnership with Game Learning, LLC is the latest in many distribution partnerships over the years, and we are grateful to Arrowhead for helping us make that happen,” Chamberlin said. “As grant-funded media developers, our highest goal is to reach audiences and serve their needs. Any revenue from this partnership will be used to ensure the sustainability of products and to recoup maintenance and update costs.”

Working with Game Learning allows the Learning Game Lab’s products to reach a broader audience.

“They are working with their partner to translate them into multiple new languages, to reach users in many countries and communities. We are excited to reward this excellent project as it exemplifies the vision we have at Arrowhead for impacting the broadest distribution,” Knighten said. 

The Learning Games Lab serves as a research facility and learning space, where researchers study and evaluate gameplay mechanics and the potential for education, as well as offering youth programs in digital literacy and media design.

Ongoing research in the Learning Games Lab informs the development of effective tools and contributes to the larger body of knowledge about digital and interactive media. Each summer, the lab hosts week-long sessions for youth of various ages.

The team has produced multimedia tools supporting a wide variety of topics, including financial literacy, food safety, nutrition, obesity prevention, math education, workplace safety, rural mental health, and many fields of agricultural science, including entomology, soil science, environmental science, animal science, range science and food science.

“The most important thing for each of our products is that they create the change we designed them to make: so we have to stay on top of the needs of our learner, and of course, those do change all the time,” Chamberlin said. “That is why research is so important to us: research on the content, teaching approach, and then lots of user testing throughout development.

“We stay connected with youth through our summer Think Tanks in our Learning Games Lab space. Youth keep us in touch with educational needs of this audience, but also with changing preferences in graphics, character design and gameplay,” Chamberlin said.  

To learn more about NMSU’s Learning Games Lab, visit https://innovativemedia.nmsu.edu/.