Games for Change‘s G4C Student Challenge is a national game design program and competition through which middle and high school students create digital games about real-world issues impacting their communities. The Challenge is run in cities across the U.S., and includes professional development in game-based learning for cohorts of teachers, in-school and after-school game making courses, student game jams, mentorship by professional game designers, social issue themes with multimedia content provided by cause-based partners, and a culminating national game design competition. Students can submit their original games to the annual competition in the Spring for the chance to win awesome prizes and national recognition.
The goal of the Challenge program is to expose and excite students to work-related opportunities in STEM and game design, engage students and teachers in local civic issues, build capacity for teachers to use game-based learning tools and approaches, and for students to learn game design as a method for storytelling and 21st-century skill development. The Challenge was piloted by G4C in NYC in 2015 in collaboration with the NYC Department of Education and a coalition of partners, and expanded in following years with year-round programming in Dallas, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Detroit, and Los Angeles. In 2020, the annual game design competition expanded to all middle and high school students in the U.S.
