NMSU American Indian Program's Michael Ray and Justin McHorse stand with three versions of the "How well do you know New Mexico" game, which has now become an iPad application. (NMSU photo by Samuel Horstman)

The New Mexico State University American Indian Program has developed an iPad application to help educate the community about the 22 pueblos, tribes and nations of New Mexico.

In conjunction with NMSU's Learning Games Lab, the American Indian Program funded and launched the application earlier this semester to help NMSU and the surrounding community to be more informed about New Mexico's Native American communities.

"What we do at NMSU is help try to help educate the community that there are American Indian people thriving and there are communities here in New Mexico," said Justin McHorse, American Indian Program director. "We needed to work on way to try and develop an educational tool to help educate people about the Native American communities."

"How well do you know New Mexico" is a game that gives the user a chance to correctly place one of the 22 pueblos, tribes and nations on a map of New Mexico. If placed correctly, information about the selected Native American community will be displayed.

The application was inspired by a board game created three years ago by Michael Ray, the American Indian Program student program coordinator.

"We looked at how we can get this to a greater audience," Ray said. "We see a lot of our student and colleagues using iPads on a regular basis. The opportunity to touch and drag has become very intuitive. So the idea of getting an app that not only can be seen by people here at the university, the Las Cruces area and a global presence as well enhances the knowledge of New Mexico and our pueblos, tribes and nations, and what we are doing here at NMSU."

"How well do you know New Mexico" is available only for iPad and free to download. The game can be found on Apple's application store. NMSU's Learning Games Lab has produced several apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, which are available at http://apps.nmsu.edu.

"The app is a creative and groundbreaking idea that will help the American Indian Program educate people about Native Americans in New Mexico," McHorse said. "It will be interesting to see down the road how popular the app becomes and if our idea will be used in other states."