Open Pedagogy Pit Stop: The Nutrition Adventures
Dr. Renee Harrington built an interactive nutrition game in collaboration with the Libraries and DELTA to help gamify healthy habits.
Overview
Developing healthy eating habits during the transition to college can be challenging. Students must balance busy schedules, academic demands, limited budgets, and an abundance of nutrition information while learning to navigate a new dining environment. Although traditional nutrition education provides important foundational knowledge, students also need opportunities to practice applying that knowledge in the contexts where food decisions are actually made. To help address this need, Dr. Renee Harrington, in the Department of Health and Exercise Studies, participated in the Open Pedagogy Pit Stop Program to learn about utilizing interactive technologies to develop innovative teaching practices and tools that improve student engagement, learning, and achievement of learning outcomes.
Her participation in the Pit Stop program inspired her to design an interactive, gamified learning experience to support nutrition literacy and decision-making. Her partnership with the Senior Design Center of the Computer Science Department were vital in bringing her idea to life. Set in dining environments modeled after NC State Dining locations, The Nutrition Adventures allows students to explore food options, interpret nutrition information, and make realistic nutrition decisions.
How We Did It
In collaboration with the Senior Design students, The Nutrition Adventures was developed using Twine, supplemented with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, to create a branching “choose your own adventure” format. Each scenario functions as a self-contained mini-game that presents realistic situations students may encounter when selecting meals, such as navigating dining options with time, availability, or dietary constraints. Players test their knowledge of nutrition concepts and apply that knowledge to realistic campus dining scenarios by selecting foods, building and modifying meals, and making choices based on individual needs and preferences. Following each decision, students receive brief educational feedback that reinforces key nutrition concepts and allows them to reflect on their choices before continuing through the scenario.
The game features a retro design that mimics 1990s video games and brings the immersive video game experience to life. As players move through each dining hall with different missions and activities to complete, Dr. Harrington has created an engaging experience that connects nutrition lessons to gamified learning in a unique and fun way.
Access the game
Access the game: The Nutrition Adventures (NC State only: must be on eduroam wifi or VPN; requires UnityID login)
An openly licensed version of the game (on GitHub) is available for anyone to explore.
If you are an NC State University affiliate and would like to request a demo of the game, please contact Dr. Harrington directly at rnharrin@ncsu.edu.
Recognition
Dr. Harrington’s innovative applications of educational technology and immersive learning have earned national and international recognition. She was invited to present her findings and tools at both the Educational Technology Collaborative (2025) and the 19th International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies (2026), highlighting how VR tools and gamified learning can transform student engagement in physical education and health.
Most recently, Dr. Harrington presented the project at the EDUCAUSE Symposium (2026) where she provided a background on the game development, demonstrated the game, and provided an overview of how the approach could be adapted for other settings.
What's Next?
Recent research has established the usability of The Nutrition Adventures game, and future research will evaluate whether supplementing traditional nutrition instruction with this interactive campus-based nutrition game improves student learning and confidence compared with traditional instruction alone.
Additionally, Dr. Harrington has utilized virtual reality (VR) tools to create virtual tours of Carmichael Gym (floors 1/2 and floors 3/4) and a triathlon simulator. Her tour of Carmichael Gym includes video examples of how to use the equipment, and her triathlon simulator walks students through all the stages and challenges of a triathlon. Both of these tools allow students to safely learn about different types of physical activity in an interactive and immersive environment.
