UW–Madison Entomology Research to Anchor New Learning Game

Game-Design Lab Field Day Seeks More Campus Partners

April 13, 2026   |   By By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship Communications

UW–Madison entomology professor Claudio Gratton had wanted to make an educational video game about insects for years. He believed a game would be an incredible way to engage young learners with the important research he does on insect diversity, but he needed a like-minded partner with the know-how to help develop and find funding for it.

Enter Field Day, an award-winning and internationally recognized game-science research lab and design studio, based in the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Field Day helped Gratton find funding to launch a recent “game incubator” — a design-and-brainstorming day uniting Field Day game designers with the subject-matter experts (in this case, Gratton and his lab staff) and Wisconsin K–12 teachers. The teachers bring their knowledge of state standards and how students learn, to keep game development on track.

It’s a system of game creation that Field Day wants to do a lot more of, as they issue a call for more campus researchers to partner with them on game incubators, when groups first start teasing out concepts for a new interactive learning experience in game form.

“I love these events because they are the first moment where we can start to imagine what we will be making,” said Field Day Lab Studio Director Sarah Gagnon. “You start with, ‘We could make anything,’ and end the day with, ‘We are going to make something like this.’ We go from nothing to something.”

Production on the new insect-related game is underway, featuring research from Gratton’s lab on the landscape ecology of insects and game play in which middle school students take on the role of scientists. Students will design experiments, test hypotheses, create models, and observe how biodiversity influences ecological outcomes, as they learn to understand applied ecological research without reducing the science to static facts.

The game is anticipated for public release by mid-2027, and will be the third funded and developed through Field Day’s GameWorks Incubator — a game-creation initiative with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction that prioritizes UW–Madison research and gives Wisconsin K–12 educators a central role in developing ideas for new games.

The recent Entomology Game Incubator brought together five teachers from across Wisconsin, three members of Gratton’s research team, and several Field Day Lab designers for a full day of collaborative work. The teachers offered their expertise, while having one of their favorite days on campus learning about game design, Gagnon said.

The design day began with Gratton explaining the scientific foundations of his lab work. The group then spent several hours in structured design exercises led by Field Day staff and aimed at addressing core scientific questions and concepts, decision-making processes, and research practices of working entomologists. Participants also identified the ecological factors most essential to representing the research authentically in game form.

“This process forces researchers to make the science we do crystal clear to a broad audience,” said Gratton. “We must get creative to simplify the ideas and concepts at the center of our work to their essence, while maintaining the nuance of the real world. This is hard, but the game becomes a vehicle to show complexity and unexpected outcomes, while connecting to the fun of discovering new things through science.”

The teachers contributed expertise in instructional design and curriculum implementation. They brought knowledge of how state learning standards are applied in real teaching contexts, plus insights into how students reason and engage with complex material.

“While a key goal of these incubator events is to develop ideas for new games, the benefit goes beyond this,” said Field Day Lab Education Director Jim Mathews. “The participants learn a lot from talking with each other. It is not often that teachers get to spend this much time learning directly from research scientists or from other teachers.”

Field Day game designers are hard at work now, with development including storyboards, prototypes, art and sound to continue through 2026 and early 2027.

From Gratton’s lab, Hannah Gains Day and Jess Gambel also attended the design day. The teachers who took part were Heather Meixelsperger, Dawn Jewell, Ryley Hartwig, Kristyn Joyes and Ryan Bergstrom. Additional Field Day Lab staff included David Gagnon, Autumn Beauchesne, Amelia Moser, Eric Lang, Reyna Groff, Levi Huillet, and Xander Grabowski.

Picturing yourself or your research in a Field Day game project? Make it happen. Field Day has opportunities for collaboration with educators, subject-matter experts and researchers from across UW–Madison, the state and beyond. Information is available online for K–12 educators and for subject-matter experts/researchers.

About Field Day Lab

Field Day Lab brings contemporary research to the public, using game data to understand how people learn. Publicly funded through grants, the team is committed to providing games to educators for free. Using an ethos that games turn complicated topics into fun, hands-on experiences that reach people, the lab also aims to better understand how people learn with games. Visit at fielddaylab.wisc.edu.

About the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER)

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW–Madison’s #1-ranked School of Education is one of the oldest and most productive education research centers in the world. It has assisted scholars and practitioners in developing, submitting, conducting and sharing grant-funded education research for over 60 years. Explore at wcer.wisc.edu.