The game power grid was a very effective game for helping students learn geographic skills. It has many of the core competencies wrapped into it and because of this it has a very strong content base from which students can learn from. The game is also very involved and can be a lot of fun for students to play. The incorporation of geographical placement of cities plays a big part in the game. It makes students think about how companies want to set up their network to best benefit their company. Having students think about how they want to expand their company promotes the idea of interconnections. The students have to ensure they are focusing on how all of the cities are connected and what impact that has on the construction of their company. The inclusion of the market economy in the game with a focus on supply and demand also helps promote the study of Interaction. This helps the students think about how the world works and link it to current issues in the world like resource preservation and development. Overall this game can be used to help students interact with geography in multiple ways and help them understand how broad of a topic it can be outside of just being seen as maps. In the class I would use this to help have the students think about what the environmental impact of power can be and have them think about what this game says about how we interact with our non renewable resources. The students would be able to see that as the game goes on the renewable resources start to become less useful and because of this they shift back towards coal and oil to power their plants. This is an interesting message that the game sends to its players and is something that I would be very interested in discussing with my class. The more they are able to look at this aspect of geography the more relevant and interesting it will be for them as a subject. It is also such a relevant topic to which they can apply their geo-literacy skills to. The digital artifact I selected because it demonstrates how people set up their companies and work to try and use the geography of the country to cut off their opponents and open up new sectors of the map for themselves to have a monopoly in. Overall I believe that this is a very versatile activity that I could see myself using for grade 11s and 12s to help them draw connections to the impact that geography has on their day to day lives.
This project was on that I really enjoyed and was very impressed with when working on the assignment. The fact that it brings attention to all 5 themes of geography greatly improves the students geo-literacy. This is strengthened by the students working within their own community on the project because it allows them to ensure that they are linking what they have learned int heir class to something relevant in their lives. Because of the outdoor aspect of the assignment I am not sure how well it could work for students in high school because the do need supervision in many of these situations. In a university situation this worked really well however and allowed the students to see how broad geography and work on their geo-literacy in an environment that they were comfortable in. The assignment helps the students demonstrate their learning while trying to make a creative project that the students can become involved in. By focusing the students on implications the students will be able to see all of the different ways that the 5 themes of geography work together. I selected the artifact because I think it make a big impact on students who are being introduced to geography. It is a really effective stepping stone to get students interested in geography and help them begin to develop their geo-literacy skills. It fits intot he curriculum at any level to help the students be introduced into geography and although I do have reservations about how it would work with secondary students I think in the right environment it could be incredibly beneficial.