HEART Force Drought Game
Provided by: Center for Education Engagement and Evaluation|Published on: May 1, 2024
Grades: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Type: Lesson Plans
Subjects: Earth and Space Sciences
Authors: Center for Education Engagement and Evaluation
Region: North America, USA - West, United States, Colorado
Languages: English
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Synopsis
- In this game, students will learn about the causes of droughts, their effects on communities, and adaptation and mitigation strategies.
- Students play the role of community members and work with their teams to invest in different resilience strategies to prepare for and respond to a drought.
- The resource provides a brief video explanation of the game, a teacher guide, teacher slides, and PDFs of all game materials, including a game board, role cards, nametags, spinners, and reservoir markers.
Teaching Materials
Positives
- Students will love the teamwork and practicing their communication, reasoning, and negotiation skills.
- The Teacher Guide is detailed and even includes a teacher script.
Additional Prerequisites
- This game is part of a larger HEART Force curriculum. The resource recommends that classes use this after completing the Colorado Drought Lesson for middle or high school, which is linked at the top of the resource.
- Students can play the game in one 40-60 minute class period.
- Teachers must print, cut, and assemble materials, including water reservoir level markers, role cards, role nametags, and spinners.
- Each student group will need a graduated cylinder and a pipette.
- The resource is designed specifically for Colorado, but teachers can modify it to focus on other areas that experience drought by changing the trivia questions and adjusting the community roles if necessary.
- The link for the HEART Force Community Resilience Expo Curriculum is broken. It can be found here.
Differentiation
- Teachers should group students into three teams. Large teams encourage more cooperation and compromise.
- Math classes can use this game to practice decision-making using probability and statistics.
- Science classes can focus more on the causes and effects of droughts and the possible mitigation and adaptation strategies.
- The Teacher Guide includes a list of closing reflection questions that teachers can use for individual written reflection, as a think-pair-share, or as a class discussion.
This resource is an interactive game, suitable for students to learn about drought and how they could respond to extreme drought conditions in their local community. The resource has already been reviewed by CLEAN scientists and having met our science review, we recommend it for teaching.
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Scientist Reviewed
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Our review process ensures that every resource in our library reflects the current state of climate science.
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