As student participation in video games increases and participation in STEM subjects stalls, a middle school teacher has found a way to keep his students entertained while learning.

Middle school teacher John Coveyou knew he wanted to get his students excited about their science and math curriculum. He also knew he would have to think of things from a student's perspective to make change.

"It is apparent that our future leaders are frequently dodging their prescribed science and math curriculum for the very different experience of game play," he said according to an article on Middleweb.com.

He realized that "students are intimidated by the challenge of learning new and complex material, so they don’t try very hard and spend their time pursuing more instant gratification."

His first instinct was to integrate video gameplay into his classroom to make learning fun and approachable for his students. It was then that he encountered another problem: "I have used science-related games in my classroom for many years now with great success. The biggest problem I found was that not many good ones exist on the market."

His next move was to design his own, and has thus far experienced great success. "Games stimulate a deeper level of engagement around an idea and therefore a deeper level of understanding of that idea," he said.

"Games make failure acceptable and even turn failure into a learning opportunity instead of an occasion for collecting shame or fear of not succeeding. In games, learning happens whether you win or lose."

His latest game in the works, for which he is seeking funding for now, is called "ION: A Compound Building Game." It aims to teach students "how ions form some of the most basic compounds we use everyday." More specifics about the game can be found on here.

Read the full article here and comment below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor