In this enlightening and entertaining game, players are tasked with understanding global warming’s root causes, prioritizing fixes and assessing the cost-benefits of their actions, all the while teaming to cool down an overheating mother earth. Set up the game board by placing “Problem” cards face up to challenge players to match a “Solution” in one of eight color coded categories from oil spills and greenhouse gases to nuclear energy or deforestation. Each card has two numbers indicating the degree of positive or negative impact on the local and global environment. The sum of those two numbers on the solution card(s) must equal or be greater than the sum on the problem card, giving strength to resolve the problem. Players have to be sure to solve all aspects of the problem card, such as water pollution, sewage and industrial waste, requiring two solution cards in this case. Each card had an excellent example of its problem or solution. A dad said, “These examples are fantastic.” We were all learning the facts to back up situations contributing to global warming and the “why” behind solutions. Who knew that in London the packaging industry is the largest user of plastics in the world and produces 40% of all plastic waste? But, re-cycled plastics can be made into fiber fillings for jackets, flower pots and strapping tape. At the end of a round, players move up the global warming indicator by the sum of global values on unsolved problem cards. Solve the problem cards before the indicator reaches 75 or all players lose. This intergenerational game challenged kids to use higher level language and cognitive skills to work collaboratively, think critically, analyze, compare and revise to come up with the best and highest value solutions. What fun to watch minds work to solve global problems in our environment while learning about real life situations from Bombay to Mid-Saharan Africa and arrive at viable solutions to save our planet. When asked what they liked about the game, kids said “It’s cool” and “I learned a lot about global warming,” just what we’d hoped for!
Available at Adventerra Games. Click here
