Most adults would just call the Yard an unsafe junk yard that children should absolutely stay away from. Of course that makes the crew even more curious to explore it.
Take a look around the Yard. You'll find the section of scrap metal that lived another life as a bike or a jeep or maybe even parts of a space ship. Hop over the creek (or wade through it, if you're extra adventurous) and watch how water currents change. Visit the prairie and run your hands through the long grass that has grown up around old crates, statues, and rollerskates. Explore castles created from crates, towers of wood pallets, and half-buried shipping containers with skylights punched through the roofs. Even more mysterious is the Wasteland… no one really knows what is out there… yet. (Did you see that carousel horse peeking up out of the water? That old toboggan teetering at the edge of the crater? You can spy it from the treehouse in the woods, the one with the working telescope right next to the zip line, just beyond the trampoline.)
Mr. Hart keeps the Yard running, sorting, fixing, and repurposing the garbage other adults don't want any more. He also spends a lot of time trying to figure out how the kids keep getting into the Yard and then patching holes in the fences, filling in holes in the ground, and scratching his head with amazement that the kids keep finding ways to get in.
Field Day teamed up with Wisconsin teachers to conceive, design and test the games. We will research not only the impact of the individual games on learning but also the way teachers are brought into the process as co-designers. We update and weed out games based on how well they perform with an audience of learners. We give additional time to the games that show high levels of potential impact and we let sub-par concepts die off.
We are so proud to have been funded by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the Wisconsin Virtual Schools. We're grateful for the constant support of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
Want help using these games in your class? We are partnering with WI Virtual Schools and several teachers to create teacher guides and resources to help you integrate these games into your class.
A Field Day Experiment
