quest_2_learnQuest 2 Learn is a complete grade school educational curriculum in NY designed around games. Math, language, history, geography, civics, science, health, etc are all learned by playing, discussing, and designing games: video, tabletop, and sports. The project starts in a month, beginning this year only with sixth grade.

It is the instantiation of the principles of the Institute of Play and its concept of gaming literacy. The executive director of the institute is famed game designer and co-author of Rules of Play, Katie Salen.

It’s important to note that Quest is not a school whose curriculum is made up of the play of commercial videogames, but rather a school that uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences. Games and other forms of digital media serve another useful purpose at Quest: they serve to model the complexity and promise of “systems.” Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century.

(source, hat tip)