IB Glopo plays Pandemic!

 

  

22 students, 2 of the instructors daughters, 3 board games, 2 iPads, and 90 minutes; we had an absolute blast playing the core version of Z-Man Games' Pandemic. Not that there's anything wrong with simply playing games for their own right, but today's activities were a part of our case study on the politics of Global Public Health; part of our unit in IB Global Politics on Power, Sovereignty, and International Relations. Pandemic is a cooperative game where players have to coordinate the efforts and skills in containing and curing 4 different outbreaks of diseases around the world. Today, only 1 group won their game, 1 group ended game play still in progress, and 3 groups lost to the diseases. We'll debrief the next time we meet (Thursday), as well as have a good laugh at the recreation of Downfall where Hitler and company play Pandemic

Finally, we'll also listed (or read if you prefer) Jason Beaubien's report on the reemergence of polio in Syria and countries in the Horn of Africa. My hope is that you can identify not only the connections between Pandemic and real world case studies of global public health, but also see examples of geopolitical challenges identified in the CFR Global Governance unit on Health. 

Debriefing Prompts

• How did you feel during the game?
• What happened during Pandemic?
• What did you learn through your gameplay?
• What connections did you see to the real world case studies of global public health?
• What if you had to play Pandemic again? What about another cooperative game?
• How will (or could) you apply your experience from playing Pandemic in a new context?

Reference

Baubian, J. (2013, October 30). Violence, chaos let polio creep back into Syria and horn of Africa. National Public Radio. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/30/240229425/violence-chaos-let-polio-creep-back-into-syria-and-horn-of-africa