Our first cohort co-designing games with educators will be wrapping up on December 9th. For our first game, we decided on the topic, Native American veterans. Our second cohort starts December 13th. Educators not only learn about teaching Indigenous and rural history with primary sources but also get experience with game design and using artificial intelligence for writing game narratives and creating artwork. Those who complete all three workshops and assignments can receive one graduate or undergraduate credit, paid by a Teaching with Primary Sources grant from the Library of Congress. You can attend all of the sessions on Zoom or attend the last in-person in Minot (held in conjunction with the Minot State powwow). Sessions are recorded for those who cannot attend live. Participants from over 60 miles from Minot will have their hotel room paid plus receive reimbursement for mileage.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.7.RP.A.1 Analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.1 Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.6-8.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas clearly and efficiently.
⏰ Time
Three to four hours. Time varies depending on the time allowed for research online and whether presentation will be submitted in writing or include presentation or video.
📲 Technology Required
Either a project or smart board connected to the computer will be required to view presentation in class and students will need a computer or tablet to conduct research on the web. The game can be played on any computer or tablet with Internet access.
Summary
This cross-curricular lesson includes history, mathematics, English language arts, computer applications and physical education. Students play a game which teaches about Native American veterans in World War I. They are given a presentation on the accomplishments of veteran, Joseph Oklahombi. In P.E. class, students sprint 210 yards to simulate Oklahombi’s attack. They are assigned to create a presentation to nominate Oklahombi for the Congressional Medal of Honor. This may include Google Slides, PowerPoint or video presentations.
The writing assignment and an outline for a guide are included in the presentation. This can be printed or copied and distributed to students through Google Classroom, Schoology or other CMS.
Physical Education
During P.E., have students measure out 210 yards, set out obstacles to dodge and jump over (backpacks with stacks of books would be a good choice) and sprint down the course, simulating Oklahombi’s attack on the machine gun nests.
Students will need to access the internet for their research. There are many reputable sites with information on Joseph Oklahombi, including the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Oklahoma Historical Society, Veteran’s Administration and more. Optionally, students may submit their assignment as a video or slide presentation or write it using a word processor.
Differentiation
For students who have learning disabilities or other limits on writing ability, an oral presentation or video may be submitted in lieu of the written assignment.
The First Workshop is Over but You Can Still Join Us
On August 2nd, Professors Juliana Taken Alive and Annmaria De Mars led an online workshop on an introduction to primary sources available from the Library of Congress, with educators from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado and California. You can see a rough draft of the game we designed here. We started with the introduction to what are primary sources and a module on Native American veterans of World War I.
October 5, 2024 – Fort Yates, ND – 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Lunch and mileage reimbursement provided. Lodging funded for those more than 60 miles from Fort Yates who have completed workshop one and assignments.
December 9 – Online, 6-8 pm Central time
Educators who attend and complete the assignments – lessons you can use in your class because we are all about hands on and being practical – can receive one graduate or undergraduate credit from Sitting Bull College or Minot State University.
You keep mentioning assignments. What are those assignments?
After you have completed workshop one, either the Zoom meeting or the recorded version, you need to complete the following assignments:
We’re very excited to announce that 7 Generation Games has received a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary sources program. We will work with educators to create games and lessons teaching Indigenous and rural history using primary sources. Of course, if these lessons included math or science, we would be thrilled. Educators will work with facilitators, Professors Annmaria De Mars, Juliana Taken Alive and Dan Conn in a series of three workshops, two create game designs and lessons using those games.
Games will then be created by 7 Generation Games. Participants receive credit from Sitting Bull College.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NF.B.7.A Interpret division of a unit fraction by a non-zero whole number, and compute such quotients.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NF.B.7.B Interpret division of a whole number by a unit fraction, and compute such quotients. For example, create a story context for 4 ÷ (1/5), and use a visual fraction model to show the quotient.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NF.B.7.C Solve real world problems involving division of unit fractions by non-zero whole numbers and division of whole numbers by unit fractions, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem.
Background Knowledge
Prior to this lesson, students should understand unit fractions and basic concepts in dividing fractions. This lesson gives students the opportunity to practice creating and solving problems where they have to divide fractions or divide by fractions, which can be easily differentiated based on student skill level.
Instruction
Introduce students to Bake-a-Palooza and have them play the game. The first time they play it, have them answer questions correctly. The second time they play it, have them answer questions incorrectly and watch the instructional video that plays.
Explain that to practice dividing fractions, they are going to be creating matching questions for a new version of Bake-a-Palooza. Show the questions currently in the game as an example.
For each matching questions they add to Bake-a-Palooza they should have:
Fractions that are divided by whole numbers or whole numbers divided by fractions.
Visual models for each equation
Have students create a real world problem using their fractions and visual models that could be used to create a “chapter 2” of Bake-a-Palooza.
Have students share their game ideas with others for feedback. Students can solve each other’s problems to double check their work.
Extension
Students can create videos to teach students who incorrectly answer questions in the game. If having students use their own phones to create videos, we suggest doing this activity at the end of class to minimize the number of times you need to say, “Please put your phones away.” Also, plan to have a few iPads or Android tablets available for use by students who don’t have a phone. If video editing software is available for computers or tablets, this lesson can be followed up with use of those computer applications.
Students can create multiple chapters of Bake-a-Palooza based on the three different parts of the 5th grade standard on dividing fractions.
Over the past few years, we have interviewed hundreds of teachers, principals, after-school staff and other experts in education – 100% cited maintaining student attention as a challenge. Across the classes we observed and teachers we interviewed, from Title I schools, from 15-50% of students were not turning in their work.
To help catch student attention, either at the beginning of a lesson, or to apply a concept as attention starts to wane, we’re building a series of “Warm-up Games” that can be played on a Chromebook.
Our first five warm-up games all take less than 10 minutes, from beginning to end. These include games in Spanish and English, cross-curricular games with math and music or science and a game to teach history and music vocabulary.
Bake-a-palooza – Dividing unit fractions by integer – PLAY GAME
Bake-a-palooza Español – Spanish version of Bake-a-palooza – PLAY GAME
Minnesota Turtles – Concepts of indigenous and endangered species and converting fractions to decimals. – PLAY GAME
All That Math Jazz – Jazz history and using ratios. – PLAY GAME
All That Jazz Music – Jazz history and music vocabulary – PLAY GAME
Wondering How You’d Use These Games?
Check out one option in the All that Math Jazz lesson by Isabel Bozada-Jones of Ohio. Like Isabel, we’ve often found that students are more interested in math when they can see its application to other subjects.
Our game catalog is growing – and still free
Like us, you’ve probably seen a lot of grant-funded programs disappear once the grant ended. We’re proud to say that, through a combination of public and private funding, we’ve gone from 10 Chromebook games at the end of the Growing Math project to 17 today. You can find the list, math and other content taught and links to play here.
Within the next few months, we’ll have at least two more warm-up games and two longer games released, one of which is bilingual in Spanish and English.
Thanks to the SciTech Minnesota program, we’ve been able to add two software developer interns. Thanks to the Center for Economic Inclusion, we’ve been able to hire a Business Development Specialist, freeing up AnnMaria’s time to focus on software development. What this means for you is that a couple of the games that have been in beta will have their final (fingers-crossed) bug-free release, and every game in our catalog will be receiving an update over the next several months.
We Love to Hear from You
As always, we are happy to hear feedback on our games, bugs (gasp), suggested enhancements, lesson ideas or just good jokes.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.NF.B.3.C Add and subtract mixed numbers with like denominators, e.g., by replacing each mixed number with an equivalent fraction, and/or by using properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction.
Background Knowledge
Prior to this lesson, students should understand the basic concept of fraction and how to add fractions with like-denominators. Basic knowledge of musical notation (whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes) would be helpful, but is not necessary.
Instruction
Reflect back on students’ prior work with fractions and ask about what they have learned so far.
Explain that musical notes can be thought of like fractions and that today we are going to be working in 4/4 time signature, which is something they will learn about later, but means that a measure contains four beats and each quarter note is a beat.
Today, we are going to be starting with whole notes, which take up an entire measure, and we are going to be finding out what different rhythms are equivalent to each other.
Show students this picture of different notes.
Explain that each measure in the picture is equivalent to each other, depending on how fast the notes are, they take up different amounts of the measure, or the whole note. Show students the same picture with the equivalent fractions on it. Ask them what they notice and wonder.
Show students several note combinations and have them find the least common denominator to create equivalent fractions. Demonstrate how these fractions fit into measures (equal to one whole note)
Have students play Jazz Math to practice creating equivalent fractions
Extension
Have students write addition and subtraction equations with different notes. Have them clap or play a percussion instrument to show the different parts of their equations.
Have students create their own equivalent fractions to add to the next version of Jazz Math. How would they make the game harder? How would they make it easier?
If you could not attend, or if you did attend and you want to download the PowerPoint, play games or access the game design site, you can find all of the links here.
Become proficient in use of Google apps Drive, Docs, Slides and Meet software for editing and sharing documents, presentation and videoconferencing.
Use Google Drawings, Chrome extensions e.g., Sketchpad, for creating graphics.
Use audio editing software to edit sound files.
Use educational software to learn and reinforce skills and concepts in mathematics.
Conduct original research on culture and natural environment of our community through outdoor education.
Conduct original research on history, culture and natural environment of our community and other Indigenous peoples through Internet and library research.
Conduct original research on history, culture and natural environment of our community and other Indigenous peoples through oral histories.
Real-world applications: Critical thinking and professional skills development
Record oral history interviews
Edit notes to include ideas from the video and interviews from Module 4.
Outline presentation or report to be given/submitted in Module 7.
For those opting to present, craft a brief professional email to request a meeting with the software team to present your feedback and game suggestions.
Module 6
Getting your point across: Preparing presentations/reports
Record oral history interviews
Edit notes to include ideas from the video from Module 5.
Create audio, graphics or video for your game based on oral histories
Game design in action: Insights, enhancements and feedback
Prepare feedback/enhancement presentation using Powerpoint or Google Slides. Five-minute presentation plus five-minutes of discussion. For those who prefer not to present, draft a 1-2 page game design report.
Present to software design team via Google hangout, Zoom or Microsoft Teams
I’m the first to admit that my history education has been lacking, with my last history course being in the eighth grade. Since I skipped a couple years of school and entered college at 16, I didn’t even take the mandatory U.S. history course that everyone is supposed to have in high school.
From an Indigenous perspective, history can pretty much be summed up as,
“We were living here and these people came in with guns, took our land, forced us on these reservations and sent our kids to boarding school.”
When I thought about it at all, which was admittedly, not often, my opinion was, wow, those colonists were really awful people.
People moved out west for “a better life.” I never asked, “Better than what?”
In eighth grade, back in the 20th century, I learned about railroad barons and the Homestead Act. People moved out west for “a better life.” I never asked, “Better than what?” and the question never came up.
Playing through the Bozeman Trail, I learned about the Irish immigrants who built the railroad. They didn’t come out west because they wanted to steal Lakota lands. They came because it beat starving back home. Does that make it right? No, but it is certainly a different perspective that I had never considered.
Chinese immigrants that built the railroad, too, had even worse conditions than the Irish. The game does not have a lot of the Chinese immigrant experience – it’s just one game, after all – but it had enough to make me want to learn more.
Life was hard for the Shoshone, Arapaho, Lakota and everyone else
If you were a child, a woman or a freed slave, you had even fewer opportunities and harsher conditions than the men working on the railroad. Children didn’t ride in wagons, unless they were very young. They walked. Deaths from disease and accidents were rampant. If your child got sick and died, you just went on. What else could you do?
Bozeman Trail gives an unvarnished look at the way the U.S. government broke treaties with the tribes. There is some background on the Panic of 1873. People lost all their savings. Banks were collapsing. There were no jobs. If you were lucky enough to have a job in the army and didn’t want to go fight the Indigenous people, you’d be thrown in the stockade.
Did that make it okay to go in and steal the gold from the Black Hills almost as soon as the ink was dry on the treaty that says the Great Sioux Nation are the owners of the Black Hills, forever? Did any of this justify moving the Shoshone, Arapaho and Lakota people to smaller and smaller parcels of land and forcing them at gunpoint to comply? No, of course not.
Personally, Bozeman Trail Reminded Me of Immigrants Today
When I see the news on immigrants getting off buses in New York City or Los Angeles from Texas, I don’t see them as people coming here to steal my job. I understand that it takes a lot for someone to pack up and leave everything they know.
Before Bozeman Trail, I’d assumed that the American west was settled by adventurers, young men who came out to make their fortune. I’m sure there was some of that. The perspective from the Bozeman Trail game, though, was many people were just trying to survive or thrive and they had found that impossible where they were.
