The question is, can we do this for science/engineering/math? Is there a way to make learning STEM material through interactive gaming? Perhaps a 3d gaming world where you put together atoms, or a minecraft-type game where you learn about physics or civil engineering principles...the options are endless, and it could do a lot of good in getting kids interested and skilled at the more technical subjects
One of the biggest problems of maths and science education is that they're useless and boring as hell. Or, at least that's how it looks like from kids' perspective. I think that a first step towards teaching them those skills in an interactive way would be to create an interactive environment where maths (or physics, or chemistry, or biology, or astronomy) could be actually useful. Some way for knowledge to give you in-game advantage, or at least expand your gameplay. A game in which you could actually read where's north from the trees and stars. Etc.
When I was in high school I did a lot of volunteering at the local science-museum where we had terminals set up with the Incredible Machine. They were always occupied.
Kids have an innate love for exploring, moreso than adults. We beat it out of them later, but in the mean time open world, unstructured games are some of the best ways to teach things to people. Look at SimCity, Incredible Machine, etc etc.