Skip to Main Content

Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning

Simulations to Support Learning

Poverty

Spent

http://www.playspent.org/

Spent is an online game about poverty and the challenges it brings. Throughout the game, players make a series of decisions which impacts their income.

 

Making Tough Choices

http://www.makingtoughchoices.org/

Making Tough Choices is a simulation that allows players to step into the shoes of an ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed) family, and experience the difficult decisions they face.

Sustainability

The Fish Game

https://cloudinstitute.org/fish-game

The simulation invites players to 'go fishing' and the object of each game is for the players to have as many fish as possible by the end. The game teaches system dynamics, ecological principles, responsible citizenship.

 

What's Your Ecological Footprint?

http://www.footprintcalculator.org/

This footprint calculator generates your ecological footprint based on how you live and provides solutions for how you can tread more lightly on the Earth.

Food Insecurity

Map the Meal Gap

http://map.feedingamerica.org/

An interactive visualization showing how food insecurity may increase in 2020 due to COVID-19 for the overall population and children by state, county, and congressional district.

 

Food Security Quest

https://www.ryerson.ca/openlearning/projects/food-security-quest/play/

Food Security Quest is an online (or offline) learning game; players step into the life of a fictional character and navigate difficult situations, while trying to stay food secure.

 

Shopping on a Budget

https://www.shfb.org/docs/drives/GroupActivity.pdf

Webpage includes activities that simulate the difficult decisions food insecure families make in planning meals.    

 

Hunger Challenge - Living on SNAP

https://ablconnect.harvard.edu/book/hunger-challenge-living-snap

Included on webpage is an exercise requiring students to think about the logistics of meal planning and shopping on a SNAP budget, and imagining the material and emotional realities of poverty.  Exercise could be done virtually with online cookbooks.

Electoral Engagement

Votes & Ballots

https://www.democracy.works/votesandballots

A collaborative simulation game that tasks participants with creating a comprehensive action plan while keeping in mind their institution’s voting rates, their resources, and the unique challenges faced by student voters.