Making collaborative inquiry a substantive component of the hands-on training on media representations of childhood obesity, students in the Departments of Communications and Multimedia and Design at the University of Nicosia team up to build free-to-play, cross-platform video games for young children aged 3-10. The aim of these games is to educate the younger generation about physical health, the role of media in portraying body images and food choices and the long-term effects of maintaining a balanced lifestyle.
To advance the digital literacy competencies of university students, the training sessions provide opportunities for attending students to acquire critical understanding of representations of the body in news and social media and computer games.
Further, using the power of collaboration to combine inquiry learning with “create to learn” pedagogies, these students create video games which reflect their understanding and motivations for using digital media.
