Discovering useful information can be simple and entertaining. A team from New Mexico State University (NMSU) brings this idea to life by introducing a new educational game.
The NMSU Cooperative Extension Service recently launched “Market Set Go!” to share food safety best practices with farmers’ market vendors. The game provides training materials in an engaging format.
The media production team from NMSU’s Innovation Media Research and Extension and Learning Games Lab in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences designed a tycoon-style game set in a farmers’ market. Players manage the market and face various food safety challenges.
The game was created in collaboration with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the University of Houston.
Matheus Cezarotto, Educational Technology Extension specialist with Innovative Media Research and Extension, said game development efforts began in early 2024.
“In early 2024, the Learning Games Lab team began working on the design of a game to support essential food safety learning for farmers’ market vendors. Our goal was to find the knowledge gaps, utilize science-based standards to develop the game, and evaluate the success of the game in providing food safety training,” said Cezarotto.
Objective of Market Set Go!
The goal of the game is for players to:
- Understand the risks associated with their produce and products, and learn how to reduce them through food safety practices.
- Understand the importance of food safety by seeing the connection between not making people sick and the quality of their products.
- Feel confident about food safety.
Cezarotto said that vendors at farmers’ markets, regardless of whether they operate on a small, medium, or large scale, share a common enthusiasm for their products.
“In many cases, they are selling family recipes or locally produced goods. Despite their excitement, all vendors offering various products, from fresh items to ready-to-eat products, need training on food safety practices. Research has revealed that vendors claim to understand food safety, but their behavior does not always reflect that understanding, indicating a need for transformative training.”
How to Play Market Set Go!
To win, players manage a farmers’ market to ensure safety and profitability. They can create appealing stands to attract customers and offer a variety of products for sale. They also address food safety issues as they arise and use their profits to expand.
Further, players can add 10 different food stands, ranging from fresh produce to ready-to-eat products. Each stand presents specific food safety challenges, mapped out with the help of context experts. These include personal hygiene, cross-contamination, temperature abuse, and labeling and packaging.
Social media-style posts communicate to players when a stand has a food safety issue that needs to be addressed. Players fix the issues by completing mini-games.
Visit http://marketsetgogame.org to know more or play the game when it launches.