dfusion

Football season is almost here, and so is a new season of math class actually being fun.

Fantasy Sports Math League turns the stats kids already love (yards, points, projections) into the math skills they need in the classroom. One 6th grader told us: "I used to not really like math, but FSML changed that, and I really like it now."

Getting your classroom set up before kickoff? Link in bio to bring FSML to your students this fall.

Thousands of students learn s*x ed through Making Proud Choices. We want to make sure every one of their teachers walks in ready.

MPC:VISTA is a virtual training simulator built to help educators practice real classroom conversations before they happen for real. In our Phase 1 pilot, virtual-trained educators matched or outperformed in-person training on 8 of 9 teaching measures.

We're recruiting MPC educators now to help shape the next phase. Interested? Link in bio to learn more and sign up.

The average teen places their first bet around age 12, younger than their first cigarette or drink.

Sports betting is legal in most states, prediction market apps like Kalshi and Polymarket are pulling in users as young as 18 (some still in high school), and up to 12% of adolescents already show signs of a gambling problem, a rate 2-3x higher than adults.

Teen brains aren't finished building the impulse control needed to catch this before it becomes a problem. And most prevention programs were built for a world before smartphones.

That's why we're building Level Up, a hybrid curriculum that pairs classroom instruction with an interactive simulation letting students feel the pull of chasing a loss in a consequence-free space, then unpack it with a facilitator.

Beta testing starts fall 2026. We're looking for high school teachers and students to help shape it. DM us to get involved.

Read more -
https://blog.stemplaylabs.org/teen-sports-betting-can-game-based-learning-help/

Sexuality does not disappear with age.

Research on older adults consistently shows that s*xuality and intimacy remain meaningful in later life. For some people, this may include s*xual activity. For others, it may mean affection, touch, emotional closeness, self-expression, or the desire to be still seen as a whole person.

A public health approach to aging should not treat s*xuality as irrelevant, embarrassing, or inappropriate simply because someone is older. When older adults are assumed to be as*xual, their s*xual health concerns, intimacy needs, and relationship preferences may be overlooked by healthcare systems, long-term care settings, and even family members.
This matters because s*xual health is connected to well-being, identity, autonomy, and quality of life. It also matters because older adults may still need access to s*xual health information, STI prevention messaging, and supportive conversations with care providers.

Recognizing s*xuality in later life is not about assuming that every older adult wants to be s*xually active. It is about respecting choice, dignity, and person-centered care.
Healthy aging includes s*xual health.
Sources: Lindau et al. (2007); Cameron & Santos-Iglesias (2024); National Poll on Healthy Aging (2018)

A few years, one SBIR grant, 200+ students, and a lot of spreadsheets later: Fantasy Sports Math League Phase II is live.

The idea was simple: kids who "aren't math people" light up when there's a fantasy football team on the line. Every draft, every weekly score, every leaderboard is math. We just had to build the game around it.

The results back it up. Students who played FSML scored 13 percentage points higher on post-tests than a comparison group, a statistically significant jump even after controlling for prior performance.

New this phase: a teacher dashboard, standards-aligned lesson plans, and March Mathness, a spring booster built around the NCAA tournament.

Link in bio to read the full story and try FSML with your class.

We are proud to announce that we will be presenting at the College Autism Network conference in November! Join us, university/college professionals, employers, researchers and students!

dfusion's STEMPlay Labs division is excited to announce our research partnership with Arroyo to conduct a quasi-experimental design (QED) study of Fantasy Sports Math League.

Fantasy Sports Math League is a game-based learning program that leverages students' passion for sports to build real math competency by using fantasy sports mechanics to engage learners in statistics, probability, and data reasoning in meaningful, motivating contexts.

Arroyo is bringing the program into their schools and serving as our research partner to rigorously evaluate its impact. Their commitment to evidence-based innovation makes them an ideal collaborator.

At dfusion and STEMPlay Labs, we believe fun and rigor aren't opposites — and this study is designed to prove it.

We look forward to sharing findings as they emerge. Thank you, Arroyo, for helping us build the evidence base for game-based STEM learning. 🎮📐

Exciting news! 🎉 Our paper, "Fractions, Fantasy Football, and Playful Learning: A Theory-Informed Approach to Multi-Dimensional Engagement in a Middle School Math Game," has been accepted for presentation and publication at the Joint Conference on Serious Games!

Thrilled to share our work on how gamification and sports-based learning can transform math engagement for middle school students. Huge thanks to our collaborators and everyone who made this research possible. See you at the conference in Malta in December!

We Did It: Fantasy Sports Math League Phase II is Complete!

We just wrapped two years of work on Fantasy Sports Math League — and the results are in.
Phase II of our ED/IES SBIR-funded project is complete. FSML started with a simple idea: middle schoolers love fantasy sports, and fantasy sports is just math in disguise. We built it into a full research-backed product, and partnered with Arroyo Research Services to test it rigorously.
The results: students using FSML scored 13 percentage points higher on math post-tests than a comparison group (p = .004) — even accounting for prior performance and demographics.
Along the way we built a lesson plan bank aligned to NCTM standards, a teacher dashboard, weekly scoring with real NFL data, and a new March Mathness booster built around the NCAA tournament.
None of this happened without close collaboration with teachers and students who beta tested, gave feedback, and told us what wasn't working. This product is better because of them.
Read the full story of how FSML went from Phase I prototype to research-validated classroom tool:
dfusioninc.com/insights/

FSML is available now for 6th–8th grade classrooms at fantasysportsmathleague.com. Free trials available for schools and after-school programs.