Key points:

• Esports programs are inclusive and can lead to positive student outcomes
• A simple approach with accessible, easy-to-use tools, is critical

Scholastic esports is rapidly growing, and many schools are starting to incorporate esports programs into their curriculum. The benefits of esports make a compelling case for creating a program: Research shows that students who participate in scholastic esports experience social and emotional benefits, increased academic achievement, and higher graduation rates.

These positive learning outcomes make esports popular in secondary grades, with both students and educators advocating for the addition and growth of scholastic esports in their middle and high schools. But esports isn’t just for the older kids, and starting an esports program in early elementary school can be an effective way to lay the groundwork for esports participation as students make their way into higher grade levels.

When young students have opportunities to engage in game-based learning and online games, they are able to build a foundation of skills and interests that can connect them to future esports opportunities in middle school, high school, and beyond. However, creating an elementary esports program isn’t quite the same as creating a secondary program, because younger learners have different abilities and learning needs than their older peers. It’s key that the program is tailored to meet these young learners’ needs, and learning space design and quality furnishings play an important part in supporting program goals.

To ensure the development of a successful elementary esports program, here are four helpful tips:

1. Simplify the Tech

The technology used in an elementary esports program should be user-friendly and simple to operate. While today’s young children are digital natives, they still may struggle with complex technology, so it’s essential to choose devices and software that are easy to use and understand. An easy game to start with is Minecraft: Education Edition, which can run on most networks and devices and is simple and intuitive for students to play. Selecting a game like Minecraft removes the need for expensive and complicated gaming computers, controllers, and keyboards, which can be challenging to learn and have high upkeep costs. Instead, focus on technology that is durable and reliable––such as tablets and desktop computers––as young children may accidentally damage equipment if it’s not designed to withstand their usage.

Educational institutions in the United States have long promoted and prided themselves on their campus grounds, endowments, opportunities, and student achievements. Student life and athletics are also powerful messages and motivators for applicants, and can be the deciding factor when students are choosing between multiple institutions. Comprehensive esports programs effectively combine these two ideas, offering modern education and skills necessary to enter a growing industry while creating a new competitive team for the school to promote.

As a result of growing esports popularity and institutions’ recognition of its educational value, esports competitions have made their way into the hearts and minds of students and youths across the country. An increasing number of schools are launching esports clubs and competition teams as extracurricular activities that appeal to a broad range of students and can excite fans and viewers all over the world.

Esports Takes on Traditional Sports

For institutions of learning, particularly schools that compete for student enrollment, having an established esports program or team can help them stand out the same way a good football or volleyball team can attract both student athletes and fans. Knowing that only 54 percent of youths participate in traditional sports in a given year, educators and school officials have come to appreciate the surging popularity of gaming among young people raised in a fully-connected society, as well as the opportunity to relate various courses and educational disciplines to careers in gaming and digital media.

As of the 2022 school year, 175 colleges and universities have joined the National Association of College Esports (NACE), which officially recognizes varsity esports programs, up from just seven at its founding in 2016. Many of the member schools became involved in esports through student-run clubs that eventually joined organized leagues and merited investments in equipment or space to enable competitive play.

Some colleges have even begun offering full scholarships to talented players, with Harrisburg University being the first to award full rides to an entire 16-person esports team in 2018. The team won ESPN’s inaugural Collegiate esports Championship in May 2019.

A larger number of member schools have launched partial scholarship programs, awarding anywhere from $500 to $8,000 to individuals. These benefits draw applicants from all over the world, with a competitive application process that often involves visiting the campus for a tryout. To streamline and popularize the process for students, some schools now issue recruiting forms specific to esports where applicants can detail their experience, share their public social profiles and submit highlight reels for consideration.

As the competition heats up and attracts ever-larger investments and public attention, the number of participating schools is likely to continue growing, with more four-year, two-year and even vocational institutions joining the fray.

Starting from Scratch

In order for fledgling esports programs to deliver meaningful experiences for students, they must first evaluate and consider whether their existing computer gear and infrastructure are sufficient to perform at a competitive level. The games played in competitions typically require up-to-date gaming PCs with powerful graphics cards, while high-quality monitors and peripherals can greatly boost player effectiveness thanks to higher picture quality and brightness, better contrast, clearer communication with teammates and highly responsive input devices.

Imagine a new school program that is gender-neutral, inclusive to students with physical disabilities, bolsters school pride through competitive meets and is eligible for full and partial scholarships from over 175 colleges and universities.  You don’t have to be a gamer to see the value that esports (competitive videogaming) could bring to your school.

Collegiate varsity esports began in 2014 when Robert Morris University created scholarships for a League of Legends e-sports team.  Nearly a decade later, over 175 colleges and universities have followed suit, resulting in a $1.38 billion industry in 2022. The videogaming industry is forecasted to grow 7 percent annually and likely to top $200 billion in revenue in 2023. 

The industry offers many opportunities for a wide variety of skillsets–and not just at the higher-ed level, but at the K-12 level, too.  For example, creatives will find opportunities to develop fictional worlds, math and science interests can lead to careers in programming and engineering, and marketing and project management paths blend the other two.  Broadcasting esports has also been a viable path to careers in journalism and entertainment.

Developing an esports program requires a dedicated space. Esports can be a way of encouraging student engagement (particularly from students who have not found other programs of interest), especially if the school can offer a gaming environment that is more robust than what a student might experience at home.

Functional needs are similar in many ways to other athletic programs: requirements include a place to practice and coach, a competition set-up, and areas for broadcasters and spectators.  Team building can also be facilitated with soft seating and access to food (traditional sports concessions or vending).

Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on innovative ways to engage students, digital resources, and online and hybrid learning strategies related to post-pandemic teaching. This year’s 2nd most-read story focuses on creating an elementary esports program.

The benefits of esports are well documented. A significant body of research has found that students who participate in scholastic esports programs benefit from increased emotional regulation, academic achievement, and graduation rates.

These benefits only scratch the surface of the positive consequences for students participating in scholastic esports. Thus far, conversations around esports have centered on collegiate and secondary levels, however, a recent change in the winds has shifted the conversation to elementary esports. 

My question: Why haven’t we started this conversation sooner?

I’ve come a long way in my journey from a skeptic with a critical view of esports in schools to a fierce advocate. In one year, I shifted from being an educator who didn’t value an expanded role of video games in schools to a teacher developing an elementary esports curriculum, running multiple esports summer camps, and developing an elementary esports after school club. 

I teach an elementary STEM class called iCreate in South Haven Public Schools. We are a small community located on the “sunset coast” of Lake Michigan. Our economy is driven by tourism and agriculture. Nestled in Michigan’s fruit belt, South Haven is the Blueberry Capital of the world. Our small community hosts the National Blueberry Festival every year and countless high school students work the local u-pick blueberry fields.

My STEM class, iCreate, is a part of our K-12 STEM continuum. In iCreate, students develop problem-solving skills through engineering challenges, collaborative inquiry projects, and media creation. While I have long been a proponent of game-based learning, I had (up until this past year) been skeptical of the role of esports in education. 

Summer 2021: Farmcraft Summer Camp

As the summer of 2021 approached, the faculty at South Haven Public Schools was tackling the best way to address pandemic learning loss while keeping students connected to the one stable thing in their lives: school. An invitation for teachers to design and lead summer enrichment camps seemed like a good way to connect with students in a manner not afforded during the regular school year. I could design a camp without worrying about standards alignment, summative assessments, or grades.

After a year of remote and hybrid learning, leading a camp with any sort of technology was the LAST thing on my mind. In fact, I wanted to lead a camp about gardening, one of my favorite summer pastimes, but how do you get 10- and 11-year-old students to sign up for a camp about plants? 

Enter NASEF’s Farmcraft 2021. 

Our local esports league commissioner mentioned that the North America Scholastic Esports Federation had released a Minecraft world for esports competition called Farmcraft. The mission: work collaboratively to successfully farm in different biomes. While many of our community’s families rely on local farms for their livelihood, students understand very little about agriculture. Farmcraft would provide the perfect opportunity to draw students into a science camp; competitive video game play would interest students, and discussing healthy gaming habits would interest their grown-ups. Added bonus: I would have plenty of opportunities to get dirty planting and exploring farming with my students.

I organized my summer camp around three key concepts: healthy gamer habits, farming around the world, and the life cycle of plants. Every day, we explored plants through hands-on experiments, farmed in Minecraft, and stayed active with recess breaks. 

On the last day of camp, the head of the SWMI Esports League, a NASEF affiliate, joined us to oversee a friendly scrimmage. Students received team jerseys that were custom designed for the camp: shirts with our summer camp logo representing healthy bodies, healthy minds, healthy relationships, Farmcraft. 

Tip 1: Get started, then get better

Like any new venture, esports is something that takes time to fully understand. As the late Dr. Richard DuFour reminded educators, we have to be willing to “get started, then get better.” The beauty of esports is that there is a room full of experts to journey alongside their teacher. It is incredibly powerful when the classroom is flipped and students have an opportunity to share their passions and expertise with their teacher.

Related:
Build ‘beyond the game’ for max esports impact
How Minecraft and agriculture lead to an esports competition

Tip 2: Start small–and start with what you have

I attribute the success of our elementary esports program to what we learned during that camp. Students were surprisingly receptive to conversations around balancing media habits (including video game play) because we connected it to recess. We connected what we learned in science explorations to Minecraft, even developing our own aquaponics systems in Minecraft to compare them to crops that received water alone.

A trial run such as a summer camp or afterschool event (such as an Hour of Code family night) is a great way to determine viability of a more extensive program. Minecraft: Education Edition is a great title to start with. The controls teachers had, a wide variety of content and worlds, and Minecraft’s “low threshold but infinite ceiling” (as Microsoft says) made it a title that was accessible to nearly every student. It could also run on almost every platform, and both PCs and mobile devices.

Tip 3: Embed esports into existing curriculum

Esports can be a standalone unit (or class), however, collaborative gameplay, mindfulness, team building, and reflection are practices that can be embedded in countless curricular units. Esports worlds such as NASEF’s Farmcraft 2021 and 2022, NASEF and AEOP’s Junior Solar Sprint, and Random House’s League of Literacy are just a few examples of the possibilities of embedding esports and Minecraft: Education Edition into existing curricula. I redesigned digital citizenship lessons to provide ample opportunities for students to interact with one another in a digital environment at the same time as they worked collaboratively IRL (in real life).

Rather than a standalone lesson, we co-constructed classroom expectations to extend how we treat each other to include interactions in digital environments. I now observe fewer instances of rage quitting (leaving games angry), tilting (emotional dysregulation), and griefing (playing in a way that affects others’ gameplay and enjoyment in a negative way). We followed a very basic principle: video games are for everyone. 

Tip 4: Make it authentic

The worst activity in school is the “experiment” where every student follows the same steps and the teacher already knows the answer. That’s not authentic learning. 

Esports affords us an incredible opportunity to learn with and from our students. As teachers, we can facilitate learning and help students find the language to describe what they observe, learn, and wonder. Students, in return, can share their expertise of video games with their teacher and each other. Maya Angelou said, “The sum of us is greater than all our parts.” Some of the most memorable learning moments arise from a question and the response, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together.” Don’t be afraid to jump into esports without knowing all of the answers. There is nothing wrong with adjusting plans and going on “side quests” with students. 

Tip 5: Be intentionally inclusive

Diversity, inclusion, and access do not happen accidentally. To have a program that allows students to see themselves in nontraditional roles, teachers must be intentionally inclusive. Find role models and videos that feature people from marginalized populations in STEM careers. Personally invite students to participate in esports clubs and camps who might feel as though they don’t belong. Explore resources from The GameHERS, Women in Games, and other groups who are intentionally reaching out to marginalized groups.

Tip 6: Keep everyone on the same team

Competition in schools has been shown to have a negative effect on elementary-aged students. While some cultures value competition, others value collaboration. In elementary esports, inclusion and competition are mutually exclusive. Although students were divided into teams for gameplay, we learned from each other during Farmcraft Camp. Teams shared out new strategies and discoveries every day. There was no ranking system, no score keeping. Teams set goals for themselves based on performance from the day before. The only player a student should be competing against is themself. 

Elementary Esports in the Blueberry Capital of the World

The success of our elementary esports camp inspired me to apply to be a NASEF Scholastic Fellow for the 2021-2022 school year. As a Scholastic Fellow, I have continued to explore esports and develop materials for bringing esports into elementary. As a part of the Fellows Program, I am writing an elementary esports curricular unit for NASEF’s Community Library.

I’ve expanded the esports program in South Haven Public Schools to include an exploration of STEM careers in the esports ecosystem. I am adapting materials from the NASEF curricula to make key understandings in esports accessible to elementary students. This summer, I am leading two elementary esports summer camps. In the works is an after school esports club (requested by a parent!) and family gamer nights in which young gamers can play Minecraft with their grown-ups. The addition of a Nintendo Switch to our lab, made possible through a Meta Educator Grant from the LCG Foundation, will expand our titles to include Rocket League and Fall Guys. 

Located on the sunset coast of Lake Michigan, South Haven community members have always shared a love for fresh picked blueberries and the beauty of Lake Michigan in every season. Over the past year, the development of our elementary esports program has helped us see that we share a love for gaming, and I for one, can’t wait to see what the future holds.

When we started the Orange County High School Esports League as a pilot program in January 2018, there was a lot of skepticism about bringing esports into schools and into classrooms. Based on successes that included increased student engagement and positive classroom and social developments, we expanded to form NASEF, the nonprofit North America Scholastic Esports Federation. There are many school-based esports tournament programs or lesson plans out there, but we emphasize true scholastic esports: intentional learning intertwined with gameplay, whether in the classroom or in an out-of-school program.

NASEF now falls under the even larger umbrella of the World Wide Scholastic Esports Foundation, underscoring a huge attitude shift as educators around the world embrace the concept. That is not to say that there aren’t a few that still need convincing, but most progressive educators are now eager to adopt programs like NASEF’s that are so engaging for students and build both social-emotional and career skills.

These positive outcomes have always been the goal. NASEF’s mission is “to provide opportunities for ALL students to use esports as a platform to acquire critical communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills needed to thrive in work and in life.” Its vision is “to ensure that ALL students possess the knowledge and skills needed to be society’s game changers: educated, productive, and empathetic individuals.”

Those are lofty objectives for programs centered around video games! To determine their efficacy, the Connected Learning Lab at the University of California, Irvine, has conducted unbiased evaluation of our programs and curriculum, helping NASEF’s team to zero in on aspects of esports clubs and classes that are most beneficial.

A report from the UCI research team says:

For the last three years, our research team has investigated the outcomes of the NASEF program. Our early quantitative and qualitative findings suggest positive outcomes for participating youth in areas such as STEM interest, school affiliation, emotional self-regulation, and positive relationships with adults and peers.

Our world is changing around us in so many ways, and the climate crisis is proving to be one of the paramount challenges of the 21st century. As temperatures rise, our food systems across the globe feel the impacts of this man-made phenomenon. This heightens the pressing need to mitigate our carbon emissions, as well as adapt to climate impacts. We need to foster sustainability across all spheres, especially in the preservation and resilience of our agricultural systems.

Despite the fact that we all consume food every day, there is a disconnect between the needs of modern agriculture and challenges many farmers face due to climate change. So few of us truly know where our food comes from and teachers do not always have tools for raising awareness and educating on this important topic. This is why NASEF Farmcraft was developed. 

Farmcraft is a global esports competition hosted by the nonprofit NASEF and the U.S. Department of State. It is aimed at students grades 3-12 and participation is free for students from all over the world. This year we had participants from 68 countries! Teams register with the support of an educator or other adult sponsor and take part in a wide variety of activities that teach about the connections between modern agriculture, climate change, and biodiversity.

The crux of the program lies in the use of a Minecraft world that has been specifically constructed to address agricultural challenges across 5 diverse biomes. Using this world, students take part in mission-based challenges within the Farmcraft world during the regular season, and over 500 teams from around the world registered this year to compete in a fun and safe learning environment. 

“Why Farmcraft? Because we need to bring learning to where people are and in a context that they find to be useful,” said Adam Cornish, policy analyst and Farmcraft co-lead at the U.S. Department of State. “Students (and even some adults) are able to jump into Farmcraft and immediately begin learning using a gaming system that they’re familiar with.”

The benefits of esports are well documented. A significant body of research has found that students who participate in scholastic esports programs benefit from increased emotional regulation, academic achievement, and graduation rates.

These benefits only scratch the surface of the positive consequences for students participating in scholastic esports. Thus far, conversations around esports have centered on collegiate and secondary levels, however, a recent change in the winds has shifted the conversation to elementary esports. 

My question: Why haven’t we started this conversation sooner?

I’ve come a long way in my journey from a skeptic with a critical view of esports in schools to a fierce advocate. In one year, I shifted from being an educator who didn’t value an expanded role of video games in schools to a teacher developing an elementary esports curriculum, running multiple esports summer camps, and developing an elementary esports after school club. 

I teach an elementary STEM class called iCreate in South Haven Public Schools. We are a small community located on the “sunset coast” of Lake Michigan. Our economy is driven by tourism and agriculture. Nestled in Michigan’s fruit belt, South Haven is the Blueberry Capital of the world. Our small community hosts the National Blueberry Festival every year and countless high school students work the local u-pick blueberry fields.

My STEM class, iCreate, is a part of our K-12 STEM continuum. In iCreate, students develop problem-solving skills through engineering challenges, collaborative inquiry projects, and media creation. While I have long been a proponent of game-based learning, I had (up until this past year) been skeptical of the role of esports in education. 

Summer 2021: Farmcraft Summer Camp

As the summer of 2021 approached, the faculty at South Haven Public Schools was tackling the best way to address pandemic learning loss while keeping students connected to the one stable thing in their lives: school. An invitation for teachers to design and lead summer enrichment camps seemed like a good way to connect with students in a manner not afforded during the regular school year. I could design a camp without worrying about standards alignment, summative assessments, or grades.

After a year of remote and hybrid learning, leading a camp with any sort of technology was the LAST thing on my mind. In fact, I wanted to lead a camp about gardening, one of my favorite summer pastimes, but how do you get 10- and 11-year-old students to sign up for a camp about plants? 

Enter NASEF’s Farmcraft 2021. 

Our local esports league commissioner mentioned that the North America Scholastic Esports Federation had released a Minecraft world for esports competition called Farmcraft. The mission: work collaboratively to successfully farm in different biomes. While many of our community’s families rely on local farms for their livelihood, students understand very little about agriculture. Farmcraft would provide the perfect opportunity to draw students into a science camp; competitive video game play would interest students, and discussing healthy gaming habits would interest their grown-ups. Added bonus: I would have plenty of opportunities to get dirty planting and exploring farming with my students.

I organized my summer camp around three key concepts: healthy gamer habits, farming around the world, and the life cycle of plants. Every day, we explored plants through hands-on experiments, farmed in Minecraft, and stayed active with recess breaks. 

On the last day of camp, the head of the SWMI Esports League, a NASEF affiliate, joined us to oversee a friendly scrimmage. Students received team jerseys that were custom designed for the camp: shirts with our summer camp logo representing healthy bodies, healthy minds, healthy relationships, Farmcraft. 

Tip 1: Get started, then get better

Like any new venture, esports is something that takes time to fully understand. As the late Dr. Richard DuFour reminded educators, we have to be willing to “get started, then get better.” The beauty of esports is that there is a room full of experts to journey alongside their teacher. It is incredibly powerful when the classroom is flipped and students have an opportunity to share their passions and expertise with their teacher.

I grew up a casual gamer, half-decent at a few games like ‘Yoshi’s Island’ and ‘Rush.’ The most intense PC games I ever played were ‘Minesweeper’ and ‘Frogger.’ Esports and gaming weren’t something I thought would be a major part of my career.

Had you told high school me that I would be a computer science and information technology teacher, she would have not believed you. On top of that, to tell high school me that she would be heavily involved in growing esports throughout the state of Utah, and she would have audibly laughed at you. Seriously–gaming was not on my radar AT ALL. 

But let me tell you how esports found me–and why I’m so happy it did.

The year was 2015 and I was fresh out of college working part-time at a tech company, trying to decide if I would continue to pursue a career in the tech industry, or if I would try to find a teaching job to actually put my education degree to use. I found an hourly teaching position that allowed me to keep my other job, and that seemed like the best of both worlds while I tried to figure it out.  

While teaching, I had a student, Owen, approach me looking for an advisor to sponsor a new club he wanted to run: ‘Minecraft Club.’ I hadn’t been around very long, but I knew one thing for sure–games were not something schools were looking to purposefully put on their computers. I wasn’t opposed to helping him run a club, so Owen and I brainstormed a bit more to come up with a new club idea where Minecraft might be one of the activities. The new club name was “Autism Club.” Owen is autistic and came up with the idea of running a club where students with or without autism could gather together to make new friends.

Owen did such a great job filling out the club application, coming up with a solid objective, and was already starting to plan activities. It was so much fun to watch him feel supported in his ideas and then to watch those ideas come to life. He was flourishing in this opportunity to be a leader and to share his unique view of the world with his peers. 

Autism Club was a success and definitely living up to its defined objective. I loved teaching and interacting with the students so much that when an opportunity to go full time at a nearby school opened up (Pleasant Grove High School), I jumped at it.

At my new school, I didn’t close my classroom door during lunch (which many called a newbie mistake), and it didn’t take long for students to discover that I would let them hang out and play their games in my classroom. I even allowed them to hook up their Wii consoles to the monitors, which quickly created a space for the very popular game Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, and thus the “Smash Club ” was officially  born.

What common theme did Autism Club and Smash Club share? The fact that I was providing space for kids to gather who didn’t feel like they had a space to gather. The majority of the students who were choosing to participate in these clubs were very similar in the sense that they were usually a bit socially awkward, they maybe weren’t the “best” students in the school academically or when it came to traditional sports, but these clubs provided an environment where they could have a team experience, leadership opportunities, and even build friendships with students they probably wouldn’t have interacted with during their high school experience otherwise.

As a teacher, I was seeing some unintended positive consequences in the classroom because of this club: students were getting to know me and started asking about the courses I taught. Because I was building a rapport with students through the club, they weren’t as intimidated to take a technical course that they otherwise wouldn’t have registered for.

I had one student who was in my programming class. He wasn’t a traditional student, per se, but we had a great relationship. He loved learning, just not what we were learning during class–he preferred to come up with his own projects. One evening while sitting at parent teacher conference, I received an email from him about one of his projects that he had  been super frustrated about during class:

“I finally did it Ms Yocom!!! It works completely as it should!!! I”ll show you on Friday! I’m so stoked. I also figured out and fixed what was wrong with that string thing. :D”

I hope my students see me as their mentor, advocate, and cheerleader. THIS email is why I teach–facilitating those “aha” moments where students see how awesome and capable they are. Helping students recognize their talents, and to see how powerful they can be when they have successfully learned how to learn. 

Two months later, my heart broke when I received word from my school that this student had died by suicide. 

As a brand new teacher, still in my first 5 years of the profession, this was such a hard thing to cope with. I still struggle to talk about this student without choking up and just wanting to tell him how awesome he is. At his memorial service, when talking to his mother, she said that the Smash Club was one place where he felt like he had connections and friends. 

At that moment, I had my own “aha” moment when I realized this “fun” thing I had been facilitating was about a lot more than gaming. 

Whether you call it Autism Club, Smash Club, Gaming Club, esports, or something else entirely (we’ve now evolved to be the “Cyber Vikings”), meeting the students where they are at – showing them that you care, getting interested in what they are interested in, finding careers that relate to their interests and making it part of your club is what will make it successful. Remember, I didn’t come from an extensive gaming background–and these kids aren’t playing Frogger. My inexperience has actually been a blessing in disguise, as I have had no choice but to have this truly be a student-run club. I provide adult supervision and focus on logistics and team building opportunities, but the students have stepped up to coach each other, help each other improve their game, and even hold each other accountable for schoolwork.

During the pandemic, esports was one of the only activities in Utah that was able to continue, which provided students with a unique way to connect that didn’t require in-person competitions. Now that we are back in school in-person, it has been amazing to see how much the students value that in-person club time and how important the in-person competitions have been to them. Parents love that there is a structured, social, supervised environment for their kids to participate; admins love that it is inclusive, building bridges across cliques and social circles; and students love playing their games and meeting new friends with similar interests.

How to find support for an esports program in your school

If you are on the fence about starting esports at your school, I would highly recommend you do it. It can be a lot to take on, but don’t compare yourself to programs that have been running for multiple years. Pick one thing, one game, to start with and grow as you can with your students. If they want a YouTube channel, help them learn how to stream. If they want better equipment, encourage them to research how much the equipment they want costs, and then to find sponsors or put together a fundraiser for it.

I strongly believe esports fits into the Career and Technical Education (CTE)  ecosystem and would love to see it supported there in a way that highlights related careers. If you haven’t seen the amazing graphic put together by Nico Besombes, I invite you to check it out here. I really appreciate how Nico illustrates the career possibilities related to esports.

There are many awesome resources out there from educators who have been working to build these programs globally. One of these resources, the North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF), focuses specifically on the scholastic implementation of esports, with free curriculum modules created by educators through their scholastic fellows program. I would invite you to reach out to me, NASEF, or any of the scholastic fellows. The scholastic esports community is so supportive and I know any of us would be happy to discuss programs or answer questions. 

We have been fortunate in Utah to have the support of a local education foundation, Success in Education, where I am also the director of technology education. I invite you to check out what we are doing here. Please reach out if you have any questions. In my opinion, “sharing is caring” as we strive to do what is best for our students.

The inclusion of scholastic esports in academic programs is yielding strong and widespread results in the youth of today. Research demonstrates that strong communities are developing, with deep engagement from students who are involved in scholastic esports, particularly students that normally don’t become involved with school activities. Because of that draw, scholastic esports is in a pivotal position to help build diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at schools all around the country.

Organizations play an important role in fostering DEI among students. NASEF’s core values include diversity and respect, and its club members must adhere to the Code of Conduct to participate in tournaments and challenges. Likewise, HSEL competitors agree to abide by behavior standards in community events. 

From the beginning of NASEF’s curriculum in southern California to the 10 magnet schools in Miami-Dade Florida that piloted the curriculum with their students, we have seen a marked improvement among students with respect to DEI. NASEF is now seeing students all across the country and even the world are joining esports clubs and opening up new avenues for themselves.

Photo provided by Mark Godinez

Mark Godinez, AP Computer Science Teacher at South Dade Senior High School in Florida, has focused on creating a better environment in his esports classroom to get more young women and those who identify as non-binary to participate. One of the major ways he’s helped improve the DEI of his scholastic esports program is by recognizing that these programs are about more than gaming. He uses other interests, like fan art, to get more of his students involved in the program, then introduces students to other concepts within the gaming space or gives them leadership roles when creating esports tournaments in their local community.

Esports programs continue to grow at a rapid pace at both the collegiate level and at the high school level in the United States. With that growth, there are often salient questions that parents have when their children dive into the new world of scholastic esports and content creation: Are scholastic esports legitimate? What will they teach my child? Are you actually serious about a bunch of kids playing video games?

The answer to all of those questions is, without hesitation, yes. We are no stranger to those questions at NASEF and often talk with parents, educators, and students about the benefits of scholastic esports and the inclusion of video games into school curriculums.

Scholastic esports allows educators to open new pathways for their students in the burgeoning digital age of entertainment and education. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated that in many ways, forcing classrooms to use online tools. Scholastic fellows are educators in a community of practice who develop and refine in- and  out-of-school curriculum that leverages student interest in esports. One of the most common refrains among the NASEF fellows was how the digital tools of gaming and esports helped keep their students connected to each other in a world-state that demanded we stay apart. In our interconnected world, games are often a dominant force in bringing millennials and Gen Z together.

As more colleges invest in esports, more pathways have emerged for students and faculty. At Boise State, Doc Haskell, Clinical Associate Professor and Head Coach, has a blossoming esports program for students. Not only did they offer $100k in scholarships FY 21, they also plan to up that to $150k for the upcoming year. The scholarships they give out aren’t just for those who play on the competitive teams–the scholarships are also for those who want to pursue work in any aspect of esports.

Photos provided by Doc Haskell

Throughout his program he employs students in various aspects: shoutcasters, directors, technical directors, replay directors, hosts, graphic designers/artists, observers and observer directors, journalists, and more. Even with the well-defined roles in the Boise esports program, students aren’t limited by what they last did. “Someone might direct one night and be the technical director the next. Others might host for one event and switch to another role the next, depending on the game,” Doc Haskell told us. When they’re creating a show, the behind-the-scenes production looks like it could be for any sport or show.

We are excited to bring you the very first in a series of eSchool News Guides, which are full of resources, tips, trends, and insight from industry experts on a variety of topics that are essential to the classroom, school, and district.

The eSchool News Esports Guide offers expert insight on why esports are quickly becoming part of classroom instruction.