Beginning tonight, I will be helping to lead our church youth through a 30-hour famine.  This is sponsored by World Vision in an effort to emphasize to youth and adults the poignancy of poverty and famine around the globe.  Norwalk, CT, and Here in Franklin offer two other descriptions of youth participating in the famine.  World Vision reports:

Each day, over 26,000 children under the age of 5 die from preventable diseases such as malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infections. Malnutrition is associated with over half of those deaths.

In particular, tomorrow afternoon I will be leading over 70 youth and adults in a game called TRIBE.  As I worked through the game — rather a series of games, challenges and reflections — I began to think about both the instructional design of the game and the message design of the leader’s guide.  The cyclical nature of game, reflection and whole group sharing seemed to be an effective technique.  Using the word game here is liberal, for sure.  Some are games; some, simulations; some, sort of just challenges.  They are all somewhat fast-paced to meet the audience’s needs, but the opportunities to reflect and debrief align really well with the literature on assessment with serious games and simulations.

Finally, the message design of the leader’s guide is well done and unified, too.  It’s not anything with a spectacularly unique layout.  But the directions in the guide highlight how the graphics used relate to the game and the Indonesian part of the world simulated in the game.  So, the overall game and the leader’s guide toggle back and forth between high fidelity and low fidelity.

I encourage you to take a look at the game and its design. And if you want to know more about TRIBE or the 30-hour Famine or if your community is participating, be sure to leave a comment.