Geographical Edutainment by zombiemonkey

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Geography. The merest mention of the word is often enough to send some people running for the hills. The average adult’s grasp of geography is often shockingly poor, but to be honest it’s not really surprising when you consider the dull way that it is taught in schools. Geography is a subject that can make even the dullest subject (yes, even History!) seem far sexier. It’s a pity that Geography (or indeed, any subject for that matter) isn’t taught using tools that could make it interesting to actually learn, rather than a near-thankless chore. Take our beloved board games for instance. Imagine a class of children who can’t wait for their next lesson, anticipating another game or two of something that’s not only educational, but also fun. Make a subject fun, make it something that children find themselves wanting to learn, and students will excel. This is where ‘edutainment’ games such as the ‘10 Days in…’ series from Out of the Box Publishing could happily fit in. Not only are they simple, enjoyable and of reasonable length (which helps with a bunch of kids who are more than likely to have short attention spans), but they’re surprisingly educational too.

‘Edutainment’ is a buzzword created to describe products that aim to entertain as well as educate. Often, products described by their producers as ‘edutainment’ are not entertaining enough to be educational, or too educational to be truly entertaining. Striking the right balance is a delicate juggling act, and one which is not often successfully achieved, but the ‘10 Days in…’ series carry the ‘edutainment’ mantle with aplomb.

The ‘10 Days in…’ series sees players competing to be the first to complete a ten day itinerary around the country or countries featured in the game. Drawing tiles from a face down stack or from a choice of discard piles, players take turns to place destinations or transport methods (cars, planes and ferries each feature in one or more games in the series) in their allotted racks and once a viable ten day journey has been planned, their racks are revealed to show their complete trip. There are currently three games in the series (Africa, USA and Europe) with a fourth to follow in 2007 (Asia), and they are almost unique in their ability to entertain as well as educate, in that the attempt to educate is not foisted upon the player heavy-handedly; rather, it is woven into the very DNA of the games so invisibly that players often do not notice that they are being taught valuable lessons about the location of real-world places. Education through play is a startlingly effective tool. “I believe we all learn better when we are relaxed,” says Matt B. Mariani, Director of Marketing at Out of the Box Publishing. “The stress of studying for a test can often get in the way of retention. When we play, we are relaxed - we absorb and retain information much easier. So any method of education that allows the information to be distributed in a hands-on or playful way will stay with us much longer.”

Interestingly, Mariani has even had a chance to put the knowledge gleaned from the game to use while on a trip with his children. He says, “I recently went to a ‘Wild Africa’ zoo here in Michigan, and there was a series of banners and maps that represented each country in Africa. My kids were very proud of me when I pulled an exhibit manager aside and told him the map they had for the Democratic Republic of Congo was actually incorrect - they had mistakenly used the map for the Congo [and they] are two different countries. I would never have known this if it was not for our ‘10 Days in…’ games.” This is perhaps unsurprising: how many of us can claim to know where in Africa the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Congo are located, let alone the sizes and shapes of these countries? Yet after just a few plays of the game ‘10 Days in Africa’, such knowledge is easily acquired and retained.

Another interesting and subtly educational aspect of the games is that each featured country’s population and capital city is displayed on the relevant tile, which allows players to learn even more – without necessarily realizing - and this information is not needed for playing the game. Given that so much educational information is included in the game, it’s easy to think that education was the prime aim when designing the game – but Mariani explains that this is not the case. “Our first goal in any game is to make it fun,” he says, “but since we knew that schools would use the game[s], we did want to make sure the maps were as accurate as possible. So I’d say we always had the educational market in mind as we developed the game - but it wasn’t the first priority”. Perhaps this is where many educators and ‘edutainment’ products go wrong – rather than keeping in mind that something needs to engage and entertain as well as educate, education is pursued at the expense of any potential entertainment that a product should offer.

The success of these games, according to Mariani, is that “the basis for the game[s] is creative problem solving. Playing the game is like solving your own unique puzzle, so anyone that likes puzzles or is challenged by problem solving situations loves the game[s].” The key word there is creative: allowing players the freedom to creatively challenge the system as well as competing with other players who have the same objective is an important factor in the enjoyment of the ‘10 Days in…’ series.

One flaw that the games have, however, is that some countries are not included in some of the games. An Out of the Box information sheet outlines that this is “in the interest of map readability and gameplay”, and even though these countries are not included, the information goes on to clarify that “they are outlined on the maps in grey”. There are several African countries not included in the Africa game, and also a number of smaller European countries not included in the Europe game. These omissions are explained within the rules to the relevant games, so it is not too damaging to those wishing to use the games as an educational tool.

Overall, the ‘10 Days in…’ series of games provide an invaluable source of education-through-entertainment, and they are short enough and simple enough to be played and enjoyed by just about anyone, regardless of age or actual geographic knowledge, which of course grows impressively after playing any game in the series a few times. The ‘10 Days in…’ series teach us a valuable lesson aside from the obvious geographical one: that entertainment and education needn’t – or perhaps shouldn’t – be mutually exclusive.