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Watergame |
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The Value of Games within a Pedagogy of Active Learning: According to an ancient Chinese proverb, "we see and forget, we hear and remember, we do and understand." For many students, traditional pedagogies that put them in the role of passive recipients of knowledge lead to boredom, psychological withdrawal from the learning process, or even subconscious or conscious resistance to learning. In contrast, active pedagogies that make students the protagonists involve their hearts as well as heads in the learning process, thereby encouraging them to take responsibility and pride in their own learning. Humans of all ages learn a lot when we play games. Because we do not know the outcome of the game in advance, our natural curiosity is stimulated by the dramatic tension of a good game. Our competitive instincts motivate us to learn the best strategies (concepts) and tactics (detailed contingencies) in order to perform well in the game. If the game contains didactic materials, players are motivated to learn much more than the minimum necessary to pass the exam. The benefits to educational games are even greater for children, as they learn valuable social and communication skills – e.g., learning how to win and lose gracefully. Some games are structured to teach co-operation and altruism. Watergame is designed to provide an entertaining environment for elementary school kids to learn about water conservation. It includes concepts, facts, and most important, behaviors that kids can do themselves in order to conserve water at home and school. As a secondary benefit, kids who play the game tend to pass on their good water conservation habits to their brothers, sisters, and parents. This is the ultimate proof of the social value of Watergame. Overview of Watergame: The objective of this game is to inform students about the importance of modifying their behavior to conserve fresh water, in order to ensure that there is enough water for everyone. As kids play the game, they are sensitized to the importance of developing good daily water conservation habits. The game takes about 25-35 minutes to play, and is for elementary school kids (3rd, 4th, or 5th graders). The game board consists of a river valley, and players take turns rolling a die and floating down the river, landing on the green and red spots. Green spots teach kids about behaviors that save water and red spots teach kids about behaviors that waste water. To win players must save the most water and waste the least, thereby filling their individual reservoirs. However, nobody wins if one or more players finish their trip down the river with less than ten gallons of water, so there is an incentive to contribute to the community water jug, from which thirsty players can draw. Didactic materials enclosed with the game: The supplemental guidebook starts from the National Science Education Standards, explaining how the game and the supplemental exercises included can be used to help students to achieve the learning goals in those standards. The guidebook contains a narrative, statistical information about water sources, water pollution, and water usage throughout the world. Several loose-leaf diagrams are provided so that teachers can project them or photocopy them for students. These diagrams show the water cycle, how water filters through the earth, how water becomes polluted, and the amount of household water used every year by the average American and Indian family. Summary of Game Rules: Players start at the source of the river and finish at its mouth. To advance, players take turns rolling the die and moving their token down the river the appropriate number of spaces. When a player land on a space, s/he must draw the next card of the same color and read it aloud, following the instructions to adjust her/his water reservoir indicator on the edge of the board. Some cards require the player to answer the next question card from that deck and force the player's token to move forward or backward depending on whether or not s/he answers correctly. There is also a big jug printed on the board with numbers on it. This represents the community water jug, and the level is indicated by the neutral-colored token. Players may donate water to the community water jug in their turn, moving its indicator up and their personal water reservoir indicator down the same amount. If a player starts a turn with less than ten gallons of water s/he can draw a limited amount of water from the community water jug. The game ends when everyone arrives at the river mouth, with water bonuses for players arriving first. If someone ends with less than ten gallons of water, then everyone loses. If everyone has at least ten gallons at the end, then the player with the most water wins. Optional rules: For slightly older children, the game can be made richer and more educational by requiring the person who draws a card to ask all the other players how often they do what is indicated on it, indicating the number of points earned by each player on a pad. For ladders, three points for always, two points for often, one point for sometimes, and zero points for never. At the end of the game, points are tallied and the biggest and smallest users of water in real life are celebrated and teased, respectively! Game components:
The game board, packaging, instructions and player pieces all reflect our commitment to being ecologically friendly: |
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Board Box & Cards Booklet Printing Die Player pieces |
100% kenaf (A tree-free annual plant) paper Printed on a paper made from a combination of kenaf, post-consumer recycled paper and a small amount of virgin wood pulp Printed on paper made from non-deinked 100% post-consumer recycled paper Done with vegetable based ink Stained with vegetable based dyes Stained with vegetable based dyes Made from biodegradable wood product |
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