In this 10-week unit, students in Years 3 to 6 will learn the fundamentals of game design and development using Scratch to create an entry for the Australian STEM Video Game Challenge (STEM VGC). Through a series of lessons and activities, students will work across the curriculum developing their critical thinking, problem-solving, and digital literacy skills. The unit will culminate in the creation and submission of a fully developed video game prototype aligned with the competition's Game Design Document (GDD) and scoring rubrics.
Implementation guidance
STEM VGC rules require students to work in teams of up-to-four. The teacher resources assume that students will work in teams of three or four and will have access to at least one device per team. It is expected that students will work through all the activities to build foundational skills in each of the focus areas. Many of the student resources can be used either on devices or printed for hardcopy use.
Learn with your students
We know that many teachers will be learning along with their students, so we have added some tips and extra information to support you along the way. For example, did you know that there is a difference between coding and programming? ‘Coding’ refers to writing the lines of code, whereas ‘programming’ includes not only writing code but also designing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the entire software application.
For lesson 6, you will need to create a simple Scratch project of your own to use as an example of basic Scratch programming. This will not take long and will help you to understand the basics of Scratch so you can support your students. You can do this at any time before lesson 6 (further details can be found in the ‘Before the lesson’ section of lesson 6). You really do not need to be an expert in programming to support your students to create wonderful games!
Support materials
- 10 full lesson plans with links to tutorials and student resources
- Australian Curriculum alignment:
- Digital Technologies as well as relevant cross curricula subjects
- General Capabilities
- Student Work Plan
- Assessment tracker with all Australian Curriculum codes to record team progress and assist with report writing
- STEM VGC Theme sheet
Flexibility
We have designed this unit to suit a standard 10-week term. All lessons will take approximately 1 hour. This timeframe indicates the minimum amount of time needed to achieve the goal of creating a simple working video game and Game Design Document (GDD). If you have more time, implementing this unit over a semester is ideal. To extend this unit over a semester, we recommend spending additional time in the Design phase.
We have grouped the lessons together into three different phases: Planning, Design and Reflection. The order of the lessons within each phase is structured for optimal time efficiency, but there is flexibility to move lessons around within the phases. For example, we believe it is more time-efficient to create visual and audio assets before beginning the programming lesson. This allows team members to start working on their specific tasks as early as possible. However, teams can complete the programming lesson using placeholder assets in Scratch and replace them with their custom assets later, if preferred.
If you decide to reorder some of the lessons, be sure to check the details of earlier lesson plans for pre-requisite lessons.
Figure 1. Lesson Organisation
