Via: Edutopia
- Civic Mirror: Simulated Nation Building for Middle Schoolers
The Civic Mirror is
a game-based social studies program that turns classrooms into countries and
students into citizens, allowing students to experiment with the social studies
course content. It provides students with a voice and brings the curriculum to
life by turning them into citizens of their own country.
According to the website,
the program is ideally suited for middle school and high school social studies
courses that focus on political, legal, economic, and social issues and dilemmas.
The Civic Mirror announced
last February that they have exciting plans in store for CM World: the space
where teachers and students can see what’s going on in other simulated
countries (meaning other classes of students). In preparation for that, they have developed and recently released features
that make it easier for countries to create and broadcast their national
identities.
At the role-playing game stage, The Civic
Mirror is played in rounds called “Years”. Every Year is made up of 4 in-class
events, called “Seasons” and instructors decide how many “Seasons” are played.
Every Civic Mirror country is a 36-Hex Map! A
class of students lives in ONE country, and the actions of one affect all. As students progress through the simulation,
their hex map evolves to reflect their collective struggles, political debate,
and individual ups & downs, each hex simulating something unique about
society. Every hex is owned by one citizen who controls it and may also develop
it into whatever he/she want to. Because
everyone is affected by the decisions of the hex owners, conflict arises as
citizens debate over how the owners should manage their property and assets. And
to prevent their country from slipping into a CHAOTIC MESS, students must
somehow GOVERN themselves!
This creates ‘player stakes.’ These stakes motivate
players to participate in the political, civic, and judicial events that occur
in the classroom.
Each participant is given a political, economic,
and/or ideological Hidden Agenda. These agendas gives players goals in the game
in order to attain Status Points. At the end of every year Status Points are
calculated and performance evaluations are conducted. When the instructor ends
the game, winners are announced.
The
country as represented by a 36-hexagon map