A good day in a math class is one where the class activity led the students to want to know the principles and big ideas. Today I tried to create a similar activity in my economics class. I wanted to make a game that could replace what would have been a lecture about the basic definition of economy, scarcity, and different types of economics structure. Instead of doing that I made up my own game.
Dunshire Abbey of Thrones
In this game you are going to try to make your town as big and prosperous as you can the old fashioned way. There is no magic, or wizards, just hard work and good decisions making. In each turn of the game you will look through the realities of your situation and see what your town has to do to expand.
In the game the students work in groups to design a strategy to grow their group as soon as possible. Kids really go into it! There was a moment where two kids were looking at the computer when I needed them to report their production for their village’s ‘WORK’ phase of the game (and yes, I realize how nerdy that half-sentence sounds), and they were actually doing research about what they were going to do.
The best part was that when it was time to talk about the economic principles I just had to write down what the kids were saw in the game. I’m really excited to keep using this for comparative advantage, and the development of fiat currency. Once I get to the end of the year I’ll let you know how it goes and if I’m not embarrassed, the actual game.
12/30 #MTBoS30