A card game called STEM Charades is being tested for commercial sale to help young children learn science and maths through physical gestures, not screens. The problem is that parents and teachers want engaging, screen-free educational activities for children aged 3 to 12, but most early-years STEM resources are digital. The game is based on research into embodied learning—the idea that body movements and gestures help children communicate and grasp abstract concepts, especially in STEM subjects. Over 1,000 educators have already played the game, and teachers report that it made them more aware of how they and their students use gestures to express understanding. An unexpected benefit emerged for children who struggle to communicate verbally. If the project succeeds commercially, the game could become a widely available classroom and home resource that improves how children communicate their thinking and builds their confidence. It would also provide a model for scaling educational research through commercialisation, showing other social scientists how to turn academic insights into practical, revenue-generating products that support everyday teaching and learning.
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At a time of increasing educational digital products, there is a growing recognition of the need for innovative, screen-free educational methods that engage young learners in meaningful ways. To address this need, this project evaluates the commercial potential of STEM Charades, a physical card game for 3–12-year-olds developed by Professor Andrew Manches. STEM Charades is informed by international research into the role of gestures in help children and adult to communicate their understanding, particularly in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). The game plays a core role in a broader initiative, supported by an accredited online training course, to communicate research with educators into Embodied Learning: the role of body-based experiences in how we think and learn and how gesture can bridge these experiences with more formal understanding and language. STEM Charades addresses the need for innovation in early years STEM resources and pedagogy. Unmet by increasing digital solutions, parents and teachers want fun, screen-free, and trustworthy activities. Parents (esp. home schooling) want to give their pre-school/early school children the best start. Early years/primary teachers want resources that extend beyond single topics and help their own professional development. STEM Charades also taps an emerging cross-cutting need to improve how all young children communicate. To date, STEM Charades has been played with >1,000 educators and many more children. Feedback has been highly positive, with teachers sharing how the game made them reflect more on how and why they naturally gesture in class, as well as noticing how children often gesture when trying to communicate their thinking. One unplanned outcome has been the positive experience for children who often struggle to communicate their thinking verbally. However, feedback has been from educators who have taken part in training sessions or received free STEM Charades resources; a sustainable, scalable, business model has not been validated. The overarching aim of this project is to commercially validate STEM Charades, to investigate who and how many educators may be willing to pay for the physical game, and use this knowledge to inform how to scale impact of the underpinning research. To achieve this, we will address the following objectives: O1: Attend two national education industry events O2: Create and build a Customer Relations Management tool to capture and facilitate engagement O3: Create and build a research-informed social media presence O4: Secure two educational re-sellers for STEM Charades O5: Secure two retailers for STEM Charades (e.g. museum shop/bookshop) O6: Capture formal feedback on commercial viability from over 10 resellers and 20 educators/educational leaders By listening, and adapting, to market feedback for STEM Charades, this project will evaluate the potential and enable the scaling of a social science venture created to communicate research that can support everyday teaching and learning, for all children. By scaling STEM Charades commercially, teachers will be more informed about how children learn and the role that their gestures play in supporting learning. Children will ultimately benefit from clearer communication, and more confidence in ways they can communicate their own understanding beyond words. This project will also provide a powerful case example of the potential to scale the impact of educational research, and social science more broadly, through commercialisation. The project lead is well positioned to feed the lessons of this project back into academia, notably into early career development.
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