Scrap Yard
Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling is an educational board game made for the Jewish Museum of Maryland's 2019-2020 exhibit of the same name. Within the education department, I designed the game's assets, including a board, 18 cards, money, and a set of rules.
Gallery
Challenge
- Design an engaging educational game for school groups that can be played in 20 minutes
- Create a game that integrates with the lesson plan for the exhibit, Scrap Yard: Innovators of Recycling
- Focus on teaching mathematics, business skills, and history in the game's mechanics
- Make the game easy to set up and explain to both small and large groups of students
Process & Iterations
Solution
- Bold lines and colors were chosen to appeal to a younger age group, which simplified the graphic style and made the game text easier to read
- Facts were added on the back of each card to keep students engaged when it wasn't their turn
- The game's goal was simplified to be about the recycling business experience, allowing students to focus on math and strategy skills while buying, selling, and adding up profits
Gameplay & Rules
In the finished game, students are a part of a historical scrap yard-owning family. The students first learn in the exhibit about their respective families, and then split up into groups against other families to play.
Gameplay includes rounds to buy and sell different scrap items. Students utilize math skills to calculate how much their scrap is worth throughout and at the end of the game to find out who made the most profit. They also learn about the supply and demand model during the selling phase, since the price they get when selling in the "marketplace" is affected by what other players are selling each round.
For more about the game, check out:
- From Scrapyard to Schoolyard: JMM Creates History-Themed Board Game from the Baltimore Jewish Times
- "Scrap Yard: Innovators Of Recycling" from On The Record on WYPR (19:50 mark)
