On five consecutive Fridays for 1.5 hours each, I taught this class for the first time in January/February of 2010 to 6th and 7th graders at Laurelhurst School in Portland, OR through Saturday Academy’s in-school LEAP program. In this class I created for 6th-8th graders (but realistically up to 12th or beyond), students work in pairs, playing a variety of board games featuring various economic mechanisms, starting with simpler games like Settlers of Catan and advancing to more complex, like Wealth of Nations. They manage their scarce resources, experience first-hand the importance of capital investment and development, and alter their plans as supply and demand fluctuate.

All images are from BoardGameGeek and are copyright their creators.

Learning and Class Materials

Instead of learning economics through equations and graphs out of textbooks, students engage with simulations of economic mechanisms first-hand. Supply-and-demand affect their production and profits as they struggle to maximize their gains. Students reap the long-term rewards of their earlier capital investments if they have speculated accurately and invested shrewdly. Through this process, they develop a deeper appreciation and experiential understanding of abstract economic principles.

Each class, I provide my students with a handout of some economic concepts with brief definitions (all of which are available in the downloads section). As they play, I prompt them to relate their game-playing and decision-making to these handouts, and vice-versa. I also ask more general questions to get them to think critically about their decisions, like “Why did you choose to..?” and “What goal are you trying to accomplish by..?” Students creatively connect their experience of playing the game to their pre-existing knowledge, as well as to their handouts, to create new knowledge.

Economic concepts in each game (see the handouts in the downloads section for details):

Settlers of Catan

• Capital
• Raw Materials
• Supply and Demand
• Diversification
• Scarcity
• Opportunity Cost

Modern Art

• Speculation
• Expected Value
• Common Value Auction
• Winner’s Curse
• Bid Shading
• Path Dependency

Wealth of Nations

• Marginal Cost
• Economy of Scale
• Scarcity
• Capital
• Raw Materials
• Supply and Demand
• Opportunity Cost

Settlers of Catan

The Games

My students played three games over the course of five sessions. Two days were spent playing Settlers of Catan twice, one day to Modern Art, and two days playing one game of Wealth of Nations. In Settlers of Catan, players build settlements, roads, and cities with resources that they produce and acquire from trading with each other. What they produce depends on where they build their settlements. In Modern Art, players speculate on the art market as they auction and purchase paintings. In Wealth of Nations, players develop their nation’s industries and trade crucial resources with each other.

Wealth of Nations

Student Evaluations

Both Saturday Academy and I like finding out what students thought of my class. Three students liked Modern Art the most, three others Wealth of Nations, and the remainder named Settlers as their favorite game played during the class. All students self-reported on a last-day survey that they a) are more interested in the topic of the class, b) know more about the topic than when before the class, and c) would recommend the class to their friends. And they all described me as “good” or “excellent.” Awwww. Of course, they knew that I would be seeing their surveys, which is guaranteed to bias their responses. But Saturday Academy constructed the survey, not I!

Room for Improvement

Next time, I would like to switch out Modern Art for another game. Of the three, it has the least similarities to the other two, so provides less opportunity for building on what students learned while playing other games. Instead of touching on a broad range of concepts, I would rather go more in-depth with a smaller number, building on their understanding as the class progresses. Each handout would include less concepts on it—I think the amount this time was a little overwhelming for some students. Perhaps next time I’ll use Power Grid or Automobile.

Students from my class plan their next moves in Empire Builder

Overview

The class meets for 50 minutes a day for two weeks, during which students play one of two railroad board games, Empire Builder or EuroRails, both of which are published by Mayfair Games. Both games are played by drawing track on the board, which is divided like a grid, and delivering loads of goods from cities in which they are available to cities which have a demand for them. The only significant difference between the two games is the geographical area they cover: North America and Europe, respectively. My students work in teams of two, optimally with four teams playing each game.

         

Learning

Learning through activity, in this case play, can be greatly meaningful. When I was in 6th-11th grade, I attended a similar program (also through The Center for Gifted) that has had a profound effect on my life. It further kindled my desire for intellectual exploration and to learn and discover ideas, as well as forming the basis for my still-developing theoretical perspectives on learning and semiotics. By actively encountering the cities of North America and Europe, my students learn more permanently not only where these cities are, but what goods they export and how they might interact economically with other cities. They also learn how the availability of goods and geographic considerations like mountains have affected the growth of railroad systems. More generally applicable, they work together with their teammate, effectively communicate their ideas, and cultivate an ability to plan for the long term.

Class Materials

Beside the board game itself, which includes reference sheets listing all the cities and where each good is available, each team records all of their plans on a handout that I have adapted from Christopher Freeman’s original after observing how my students interact with it. This not only facilitates my students’ planning and day-to-day continuity, but helps me write their evaluations at the end of the session. You can view this record sheet here. All of the materials I’ve created for this class are available in the downloads section, and the games are available from Mayfair (educational discounts apply).

In addition to this record keeping sheet, my students fill out a self-evaluation form before I write my evaluations. They are asked to describe at least one of each of the following: a correct decision they made, a mistake and what they learned from it, a good decision on the part of another team, and a general piece of advice to share with a new player. This self-evaluation helps me know what they actually learned from their experience playing the game, and helps them wrap up their two-week experience.

Other Responsibilities

Other than classroom management and helping to create an exciting, safe environment in which to explore the games, I am responsible for writing three letters primarily targeted at my students’ parents. On the first day, each student receives a handout describing the class to give to their parents. On the last, they receive a handout recapping the class and detailing ways to extend their classroom experience, in this case where they can buy the games they played and other recommended board game publishers (all of which are listed in the sidebar under ‘Board Games’). Finally, my evaluations of the students, which includes 4+ sentences detailing each of their specific personal achievements, are mailed home after the final day of class.

new: Oiligarchy

Web

A politically radical game that puts you in the role of an oil company from the wonderful Molleindustria. play in your browser and then read the postmortem for a fuller experience

treats video games as a serious medium, radical politics in a video game that is also a good game, self-reflexive creators, serious but also tongue-in-cheek political commentary, postmortem makes explicit the models of the world that inform the game

Braid

Xbox 360

A terrific independent game that’s about… a bunch of things. And hopefully it will revolutionize video game design!

leaves the player with more (really quite interesting) questions than answers, many possible ways of answering those questions, innovative game mechanics, short enough that those mechanics stay fresh for the entire game, clever level design, really really really great ‘last’ level, pervaded with meaning, complex story line (bordering on convoluted… but that depends on how you approach it), trendsetting and history-altering (remains to be seen)

Gravitation

Windows/Mac/Linux

Pretty dang deep, dude. I found it more moving than Passage, by the same designer (Jason Rohrer). download

super-short, very free, pretty deep, emotionally moving

Rock Band

Xbox 360/PS3/Wii

Rocking is pretty fun, especially with your friends! It’s kind of like being in a band except you get immediate rewards and you don’t need to be able to play an instrument.

pretty good tunes, lots of people can play (especially if you’re good at sharing and taking turns!), the drums are actually a lot like playing drums (except you don’t cross over your hi-hat arm, and learning challenging parts is different than with real drums), character customization/playing with dolls, ninjas, sweet tats (if you’re into that sort of thing), awesome musical fun

Mass Effect

Xbox 360

I’ve played it all… it’s a roleplaying game and it’s about space and aliens and stuff.

it’s like being in a pretty-decent science fiction novel (I didn’t like that there were evil robots that had to be stopped, who were just kind of there), the slow-speaking aliens that announce what kind of utterance they’re making are a little interesting linguistically (also funny), discursive roleplaying (if you’re not a meta/power gamer… but it unfortunately doesn’t have a massive effect, pun intended)

Sam & Max

Mac/Windows/Linux/iPhone

I’ve only played Hit the Road, but there are some others only for Windows and soon for Wii; files available on my downloads page

more challenging non-arbitrary (mostly) adventure (though not quite as hard as Monkey Island, I’d say), interesting characters, actually decent dialogue with voice acting!, nostalgia, irreverence, satire, musical numbers

Passage

Windows/Mac/Linux

It’s like, deep. download

super-short, very free, dude, it’s deep

Bridge Construction Set

Windows/Mac/’nix

Yeah, it sounds really boring but actually it’s an awesome puzzle game of bridge engineering. download

non-violent, puzzles with relatively simple rules (physcis!) but potentially complex solutions, non-arbitrary puzzles (real stuff, like physics; which is not to say that you don’t have to learn the system. You do, especially how the parts fit together and what their strengths are), most efficient use of limited resources, multiple bridge materials to choose from, problem solving, bridge engineering!

Aerobiz

SNES

An ‘airline management simulation game’, as I like to call it. Imagine what Airline Tycoon would be, if that existed. If you’re interested, download an emulator and a ROM (and maybe check out Aerobiz: Supersonic while you’re at it).

learning stuff (about somewhat outdated airplanes, like capacity, range, and fuel efficiency; about major airline routes), advance planning, maximizing utility from limited resources (resources including not only money but airplanes in your fleet, flight slots in cities, etc.), complex in its simplicity, 1-4 players with as few as 1 controller, a touch of geography (with a touch of information about various cities worldwide), non-violent
CAVEAT: turns, not to mention full games (I’ve never completed one) take a long time, especially with more than two people! Ice cream is recommended.

Peacemaker

Mac/Windows

Attempt to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as either the Palestinian or Israeli head of state: hell yeah. download

incredibly challenging, unique goal (peace! wow!), complex (fairly many options, many of which are hard to accomplish, all of which have various pros and cons; lots of interests and effects to keep in mind when choosing actions), replayability (multiple levels of violence that arguably correlate to greater levels of realism: the more violent, the more real, honestly; at the higher levels of violence, I can imagine the game is almost impossible: I’ve only beaten it on ‘calm’ and the middle level as the Palestinian president), powerfully moving (incorporates real video and images)

The Secret of Monkey Island & Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge

Mac/Windows/Linux/iPhone

Files available on my downloads page

humor (puns, tongue-in-cheek, not only in dialogue but in the puzzles themselves), nostalgia, good midi music, pixel art (especially in Monkey Island 2), challenging and usually non-arbitrary adventure, pirates, grog, insult swordfighting

Escape Velocity

Mac/Windows

If you get Nova, you can get the previous two games and play them on the Nova engine: download

large universe, open-ended (you can play however you want: for the story, to accumulate wealth and a majestic fleet, to become the most powerful, to conquer the universe, to accomplish challenging feats, etc.), customizability (not only your ships, but the game itself can be modded extensively and relatively easily), immersion (if you want it), replayability (because of the open-endedness and customizability, as well as multiple engrossing story-lines), ‘more powerful’ ships are not necessarily better (being able to take down pretty much anything one-on-one in a nicely tuned Starbridge is awesome)

Geneforge 4

Mac/Windows

I’ve actually only played the relatively long and engaging demo, but it was a terrific (albeit time-consuming) experience. download

engrossing story-line, complex yet mysterious world, choices that actually make a difference, interesting character classes (that appear in previous Geneforge/Avernum games, but still), moral dilemmas

ElectroCity

Web

play in your web browser

environmental and social responsibility, challenging in its relative simplicity, replayability (multiple criteria for success)

SimCity 2000

Windows/Mac (Classic)

Mac-only files available on my downloads page

learning about city planning at an obviously simplified level, replayability (because of open-endedness and scenarios), advance planning