Want to pick up your conservation IQ while swimming down a beautiful river? Join in this fun family game of gaining and losing water filled with competition as well as cooperation. Players advance down the river based on “Savings” or “Wasting” cards, while absorbing tips on how to be good stewards of our water. Point values are assigned to positive and negative impacts on our water supply. “Use a watering can for your garden” adds 19 gallons to your water inventory, while “running the dishwasher half empty” wastes 7 gallons, depleting your stash. Players can also advance or retreat based on answering “Question cards” containing fascinating facts about water conservation, “Frogs make more tadpoles if the water is clean?” “Where is most of the earth’s fresh water?” or “How long can a human survive without drinking water?” Players caught wasting too much water must rely on the community cistern to replenish their supply, thanks to donations from players who have had better luck collecting water saving points. It was fun to see players strategize as how to best keep the cistern full so that no one would be caught at the end of the game without water, since everyone would lose! Do we rotate donations? Does the person farthest ahead always donate? When should we donate? Lots of conversation was generated around negotiations and group strategizing, building language and math skills. Players learn the specific ways to conserve water as well as expand their conservation vocabulary: potable, desalinate, or hydrologic cycle. One of the fun outcomes of playing this game was the conversation generated throughout the next few days, when players became aware of turning on the shower ahead of time, leaving the water running while brushing their teeth, and sweeping the driveway instead of hosing it! What a fun way to learn and have an impact on our planet.

Available at Adventerra Games. Click here.