Beta-Testing has begun for our pilot curriculum on e-sports! Thirty-five youth ages 12-18 joined our first Virtual e-Sports Club meeting.  The initial curriculum focuses on teamwork, communication, strategy, visual/spatial skills, and sportsmanship.  Check out the pilot program here.

A few guiding points/background for this pilot curriculum:

1) Esports is a form of sports primarily facilitated through electronic systems in which theinteractions between players and teams are enabled through human-computercommunication. eSports includes many video game genres as well as card games.

2 ) Studies have shown that esports provides many of the same benefits of other sports, minus the physical exertion. Those benefits include teamwork, communication, strategy, visual-spatial skills, and sportsmanship. (Granic, Lobel & Engels, 2014)

3) University of Illinois Extension 4-H will follow the ESRB rating system when selecting video to play with 4-H convened and hosted activities.

4) 4-H volunteers and staff leading e-sports clubs and events are required to follow ESRB ratings in selecting video games that match the ages of the participating 4-H members. Under no circumstances will video games with a Mature (M) rating be allowed during 4-H clubmeetings or other 4-H hosted events.

5) In making decisions about what games their kids can play at home, parents may find value in the following resources:

• Tips on parental controls and family discussion guide
• Game Reviews with details on presence of drinking, drugs and smoking, violence, sex, language, positive messages, positive role models and representations, consumerism and ease of      play.

eSport competitions can be a career and/or a pathway to college. See what the UniversityofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign Esports team is up to at: https://esports.illinois.edu/

We’re excited to report back with more information as this curriculum evolves! For more information, contact Keith Jacobs at kjaco4@illinois.edu or Eric Li at el2@illinois.edu

Look Inside

Click here for a preview of the first few pages!