CCT's Dr. James Diamond, along with Leah Potter (American Social History Project) and David Langendoen (Electric Funstuff), presented "There's a Badge for That" at the 2012 Games for Change Festival on June 19.

In their presentation, the three-a formative researcher, a social historian, and a game developer- discussed how they created a badge system for Mission US: The Flight to Freedom, an educational game developed for middle-school American history classes. In the game, students play the role of a 14-year-old runaway enslaved girl who must escape a Kentucky plantation and remain free in an Ohio border town in the 1850s.

Diamond, Potts, and Langendoen described the challenges of creating a badge system to reward "acts of resistance," and of integrating the system into gameplay such that it helps students build historical understanding about enslaved persons' lives. They also spoke about techniques for aligning and integrating learning objectives, educationally and personally meaningful gameplay, and badges that signify both.