In this session, two museums describe projects that draw upon digital, collaborative game play and simulation to foster students’ interest, learning, and engagement with science and technology concepts as they play out in the real world. The projects focus on topics of broad societal importance—energy and genetics—and are designed for middle and high school-aged students. Future Energy Chicago is a collaborative, multi-player simulation that provides an in-museum experience coupled with a pre-and post-visit in-classroom curriculum. GeniGames is a video game that incorporates competitive gaming elements into an existing curriculum designed for high school students. Presenters will also discuss ongoing research studies that investigate how specific gaming and simulation elements can contribute to students’ understanding of scientific concepts. Research examining longer term impacts of these games-based experiences on cognitive dimensions of students’ learning, and affective dimensions such as motivation and engagement will also be discussed. Research results will be based within the field of the learning sciences– applying techniques and frameworks from the fields of child development, psychology, science education, and more to insure a wide range of applicability to other settings.