About Us


Theme Park Kitchen was created by the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University with expansion funding from the Extension Foundation USDA-NIFA New Technology for Ag Extension (NTAE) program. The game uses learning content and from a previous Learning Games Lab game Ninja Kitchen, which our team created in collaboration with Rutgers University food safety researcher Carol Byrd-Bredbenner. When the Flash technology used to create Ninja Kitchen became obsolete in 2020, we sought funding to redesign the game with a new theme. 

Special thanks to the NTAE team, who encouraged and supported this work every step of the way.

Learning content

The game has three main learning outcomes for players: 1) Wash hands before preparing food, 2) Avoid cross-contamination from raw meat and dirty produce to cooked or ready-to-eat foods, and 3) Cook foods at the proper temperature. Throughout the majority of the game, players can “see” contamination on hands and surfaces: dirt from hands is brown, contamination from produce is green, and possible bacteria from meat is red. In the final levels, the players can no longer see this contamination and must work from memory to keep customers safe. In this final level of the game, the player has an opportunity to test themselves, having practiced and internalized the proper behavior without seeing contamination



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New Technologies for Ag Extension


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Copyright 2023, New Mexico State University Board of Regents. Theme Park Kitchen was developed by New Mexico State University Innovative Media Research and Extension and its Learning Games Lab.

Theme Park Kitchen received funding from Extension Foundation USDA-NIFA New Technology for Ag Extension (NTAE) at the Expansion phase. NTAE is a grant program generously supported by the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and administered through a partnership between Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation (EXF).

The original Ninja Kitchen game was produced by the NMSU Learning Games Lab in collaboration with Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, professor and Extension specialist at Rutgers University and innovative educator in nutrition and food safety. It was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2007-51110-03813.

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