Grand Rapids Public Museum Receives $100,000 Grant for Web-Based, Mobile Game
The Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM) has announced that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded the Museum a $100,000 grant for the prototyping of a web-based, mobile game that explores the history of the Grand River. The grant is part of NEH’s recent awards in its Digital Projects for the Public: Prototyping Grants award category.
The NEH’s Digital Projects for the Public grants support projects such as websites, mobile applications, games and virtual environments that significantly contribute to the public’s engagement with humanities ideas.
“The Museum is honored to have been awarded this grant to continue using technology to make history, science and culture more accessible for the community,” said Alex Forist, the GRPM’s Chief Curator. “Our team has been working diligently to adapt to an increase in demand for digital cultural resources by families, students, educators, historians and more, and this grant allows us to test out experiences, to learn what resonates best with the public, to encourage further curiosity about the history of the Grand River.”
Beginning in the spring, the Museum will work to create a prototype for a web-based mobile game called River of Time that will encourage thousands of participants to explore the Grand River Watershed and interact with high quality humanities content at multiple interaction points around the region. The scalable prototype will inform the development of a future platform that will allow the GRPM to deliver curated information, digital collections and engaging, interactive experiences at historically and culturally significant locations within the community. The game prototype will run in a web browser, which will allow anyone to access it for free using a device with internet access. The prototype will focus on activation points along the 40-mile-long lower Grand River corridor.
The Museum will be using its internal expertise of staff members including Alex Forist, Chief Curator, and Dr. Stephanie Ogren, VP of Science and Education, who will facilitate and develop area humanities themes. The Museum will also work with its technology partner, YETi CGI for the digital experience development and design. Additional partners for content development include: Tribal Chairman Ron Yob, Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians; Dr. J. Marty Holtgren, native content, river restoration and ecology; Dr. Janet Brashler, former professor and Curator of Anthropology for Grand Valley State University; George A. Bayard III, Executive Director of the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives (GRAAMA); George Heartwell, former Mayor of the City of Grand Rapids and Matt Schultz, curation and digital preservation specialist. Additionally, Grand Valley Metropolitan Council and Ottawa County Parks will assist with implementation. Once a prototype is ready to be tested, the Museum will share information on how to access it via its website and social media channels.
“The outcome will be to create a digital platform for Museum and humanities content that is accessible to all,” said Dr. Stephanie Ogren, VP of Science and Education for the GRPM. “Working with a group of distinguished leaders in their fields, as well as our design partner that pushes the boundaries of accessibility using technology, we are confident that the Museum will be creating new digital experiences that the public will enjoy.”
“As we conclude an extremely difficult year for our nation and its cultural institutions, it is heartening to see so many excellent projects being undertaken by humanities scholars, researchers, curators and educators,” said NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. “These new NEH grants will foster intellectual inquiry, promote broad engagement with history, literature and other humanities fields, and expand access to cultural collections and resources for all Americans.”
