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On September 21, 2010, Mission US launched its first mission, “For Crown or Colony?” at mission-us.org. Our goal was to use the highly engaging and popular medium of videogames to get young people to care about history, by experiencing it through the eyes of peers from the past. In each mission, students would step into the role of a teenager at a pivotal time: starting with Nat Wheeler, a 14-year-old printer’s apprentice who would eventually witness the 1770 Boston Massacre. A complementary classroom guide would help social studies teachers incorporate Mission US into their curriculum. Partnering with other PBS stations across the country to spread the word and provide professional development training to teachers, Mission US was played by more than 100,000 registered users that first year. 

Fast forward fifteen years: Mission US has released seven additional missions and now has more than 5.5 million registered users across the country – including over five million students and 150,000 teachers – with more joining each year. Our missions now span the U.S. history curriculum from Early Encounters in the 1500s through the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and include connections to world history through our newest mission. We’ve upgraded our gaming technology from Adobe Flash to Unity, added iPad and Chromebook apps, updated and streamlined our educator guides, and created a self-paced professional learning module now available free on PBS LearningMedia. Multiple research studies have shown that Mission US has a positive impact on students’ historical knowledge and skills. 

While Mission US has garnered countless awards and honors – including the Games for Change Award for Most Significant Impact, Japan Prize for Educational Media, multiple International Serious Play Awards, Parents’ Choice Awards, Webby and Emmy Award nominations – it’s the love we continue to receive from teachers, students, and parents that makes the difference.   

Here are a few recent messages from our fans: 

• “The reason I really like the Mission US series is that they do a great job of blending gameplay and learning, which is not an easy thing to accomplish. Some other activities I have found are steeped in facts, but not very engaging to the students. Others are very flashy and shiny, but their educational value is low.  Mission US understands that you need to engage the student, but also offer a significant learning experience. I am grateful to everyone on your team for making this your goal!  There are few resources that I have used for 10+ years, and Mission US is one of them.” – Jason Stern, 8^th grade US history and civics teacher, Hellertown, Pennsylvania 

• “The thing I appreciate most about [Mission US] is that it allows students to better understand the lives of people involved in these events. Often middle schoolers struggle to connect the information to real lives and Mission US helps build that bridge. I appreciate your consideration and dedication to creating such meaningful, engaging resources for classrooms!” – Elizabeth Thompson, 7^th grade language arts and history teacher, South Dakota 

• “I’m a 22-year-old history student. But I wasn’t always. Once, I was a little homeschool girl that found this site through an ad on PBS KIDS…These games showed me the side of history that is everything I love about history: the people that build it. I got to see and imagine for myself what it would have been like to live in different times, as different people, to understand perspectives not my own. I think that the understanding and perspective it gave me has stuck with me, all the way into adulthood. I was exposed to history that no one was teaching me as a kid…and I’m always going to be so grateful that this site exists.” – Kelly, student 

• “I’m not sure how I would teach without Mission US as it has become such an integral part of my curriculum over the last decade. It is the best way for my English Language Learners to connect to the history, time period, people, conflicts, and effects of crucial times in our history on people their own age. I’ve seen the engagement of my students multiply when we use one of the Missions in a specific unit of study.” – Scott Jackson, U.S. history teacher, Brooklyn, NY 

• “Thanks for all you do to bring Social Studies to life with honesty, empathy, multiple perspectives, and challenging complexity. Mission US games help students connect, care, and think. Your games are the closest thing to a holodeck or a Magic School Bus that there is out there.” – Paul Frankmann, 8^th grade social studies teacher, Aurora, Ohio 

A big, heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who have used Mission US, shared your feedback and stories, and passed the word on to your friends, families, colleagues, and others in your networks. And of course, we remain grateful to the funders and partners who have made Mission US possible. Here’s to another year of engaging young people in a thoughtful exploration of our past.