Schools typically offer competitive sports programs like football, soccer, cheerleading, or volleyball. But more schools are beginning to offer esports. Esports are competitive electronic sporting events that provide opportunities for students to learn digital citizenship, team building, leadership and life skills aligned with academic areas.

Today, you'll learn about esports  and how you can become involved!

Step 1: Esports is more than just playing video games. It actually comes with some suprising benefits! Review this article and take notes on the benefits of esports in your DaVinci notebook. 

Step 2: Read more about how esports has grown here. Watch this video to learn about the benefits of esports in schools from students and teachers.

Step 3: Imagine you want to start an esports club or team at your school. How could you convince someone to support this club or team? Watch this promotional video and make note of how esports creates paths to success.

Step 4: Create an elevator pitch to convince your family or teacher why your school should have esports teams and events. In 60 seconds or less, be sure to state:

- What need is esports addressing?

- What value does it bring?

- How is it different from what currently is offered at school?

Step 5: Ask a family member or teacher to share your elevator pitch on social media using #MakerMondayTN and #AlwaysLearningTN!

Esports starts with video games but unlike regular gaming, esports players work collaboratively with a team to learn strategies and coordinate their moves. The competitive, multi-user games they play are created by video game designers and combine graphic design, story telling, and coding. What kind of adventure would you create?

Today, you'll outline your own esport game!

Step 1: Every adventure starts with a story. Video game design is no different. You need to create your world and decide what has happened. Use this storyboard guide begin outlining your video game.  

Step 2: In a multi-user experience, you have to create more than just one main character and some enemies. You'll need a team to work together in their shared quest. Create your characters and decide on their abilities and personalities. 

Step 3: There are more and more esports games produced every year and the market is growing exponentially. Explore the plot summary of the 10 games every gamer should know here. Do your story or characters follow any of these games?

Step 4: Now that you've created your narrative and characters and reviewed some popular story lines, it's time to start building. Explore FlowLab to begin building your game design.

Step 5: Ask an adult to share your game design on social media using #WonderWednesdayTN and #AlwaysLearningTN!

It is easy to see the game player when thinking about an esports career, but there are many jobs behind the scenes. Gaming is just the visible part of esports. Career opportunities range from management, operations, sales, event planning, coaching, and even social media coordinating. This emerging career field might hold your future job.

Today, you'll explore careers in the exciting field of esports! 

Step 1: Read this article to learn about how esports is more than just playing video games. View this chart of career paths to see all of the job options related to esports. Are there certain fields that are more interesting than others? 

Step 2: Esports has a central organization that monitors and regulates competition. ESL Gaming offers information on playing, becoming a pro, or seeing a competition. Explore their website here.

  

Step 3: Careers like marketing, management, and event management might get overlooked, but these large competitions have to have someone to organize and run them. Explore some of the behind the scenes career options associated with esports here. 

Step 4: Someone has to design the video games people play in esports. Graphic designers and software programmers work together to create adventures and challenges in a digital world. Learn more about game designing here.

Step 5: Ask an adult to share something you learned about esports careers using #FutureFridayTN and #AlwaysLearningTN!