"Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child."
-Joan Almon
"People tend to forget that play is serious."
-David Hockney
"Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn."
-O. Fred Donaldson
"Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions."
-Mark Twain
"Children at play are not playing about. Their games should be seen as their most serious minded activity."
-Michel de Montaigne
"What we play is life."
-Louis Armstrong
"Play is our brain's favorite way of learning."
-Diane Ackerman
"Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems."
-Bill Watterson
"Play is the beginning of knowledge."
-George Dorsey
"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood."
-Fred Rogers
The Yale Center for Health & Learning Games develops and evaluates videogame-based interventions with the goal of reducing risk and promoting healthy behaviors, social good and education. Our multidisciplinary team integrates established behavioral change theories into our interventions to create healthier, safer lives for our players.
We aim to foster risk awareness, well being, and social intelligence with high levels of engagement, fidelity, and impact. We use rigorous scientific methods and metrics to develop and evaluate our videogame technology.
The Yale Center for Health & Learning Games is home to a growing family of labs, including the play2PREVENT and play4REAL Labs, along with community educational outreach programs, such as our ForAGirl program.
The Center is able to forge partnerships across academic, technological, and creative fields through collaborations with researchers, scientists, and commercial game developers. We also focus on community and work closely with educators, parents, and teens to develop and rigorously test our targeted game interventions for risk reduction and prevention.
Our mission is to serve as a resource for schools, youth programs, teens, parents, and communities and work together towards the common goal of improving and securing the futures of youth and young adults. We strive to do this by developing and evaluating game interventions to transform health and learning behaviors and through offering innovative and engaging educational programs.