Play to Learn: Settlers of Catan
One of my favorite hobbies is to play board games. There are many special moments in my life tied to playing games- meeting my husband, our proposal story, fun times with friends and so many more! Now when I mention board games, I am not talking about the classic ‘family game night’ games. I am talking about board games that have more strategy and themes involved in them.
In many classrooms, we find Monopoly, Life, Connect 4, Candyland- the more classic ‘family game night’ games. What if we looked at some of these more strategic and thematic games that fit in with our standards and curriculums as a way of not only teaching content the games align with, but also social emotional skills?
First, a bit of history about the games we will look at in this series. Since the 1980’s, Euro-style strategy games have grown in popularity through the 1990’s and 2000’s. Euro-style games have brought about another classification of games American-style games.
- Euro- style games are described as having a focus on mechanics over theme.
- American-style games have more focus on theme over mechanics.
Nowadays, the genres have kind of blended a bit. The more common designations are Strategy and Thematic as both styles of game have bits of the other designation included as well.
These are games that we can incorporate into our classes – to teach via the board games. One of the classic Euro-style game and the first I will highlight is Settlers of Catan.
Settlers of Catan is a game that focuses on the mechanics of the game.
- Discover Catan: Embark on a journey to the uncharted island of Catan, where you will compete with fellow settlers to establish dominance.
- Resource Management: Strategically collect and trade resources such as ore, brick, lumber, grain, and wool to grow your settlements.
- Construct and Upgrade: Utilize your resources to build roads, settlements, and cities to accumulate victory points.
- Engaging Gameplay: Roll the dice to gather resources from various terrain hexes, and use smart tactics to outwit your rivals.
The goal of the game is to be the first player to win 10 victory points. You can earn these victory points in a variety of ways. But first, let’s learn about how we set up the game.
When first using this game in the classroom, begin by instructing students to place the border and the terrain hexes in the correct location based on the initial game setup. Next, the numbered circles are placed on the designated terrain hexes.
This is the only information I tell students or the adults in one of my professional development sessions. I take away the rules from the game box and give explicit instructions on how to set up the board in the initial set-up.
Learners then notice that there are different numbers on the circles, between 2 and 12, and dots below them in different amounts. Some of the numbers and dots are red and some are black. The focus questions for the learning that I pose is “What do the numbers represent? What is the purpose of the dots below the numbers? What do they represent?”
Exploring the game box, learners see cards they will use in the game along with 2 die. Following some discussion with peers and critical thinking, the realization that the numbers 2-12 are the sums of the 2 die when rolled. Students are then instructed to roll the 2 die a certain number of times and tally up how many times each number is rolled (this typically varies on the number of groups there are in the room). The more times the die are rolled, the better data you will collect. A chart similar to the one on the left is beneficial for learners to record on.
Once the data from the room has been gathered, the results should look similar to this chart:
Every time I have done this with learners, it has not looked perfect. As I previously stated, the more data you collect, the closer to this graph the results will look. Students just explored the probability of rolling 2 die. But why does this happen? Prompted with that question, learners come to the conclusion it is the based on the number of ways the numbers can be reached when taking the sum of the 2 die rolled.
But what does this have to do with Settlers of Catan?
The number of dots below the numbers is the probability of the number being rolled in the game. There is only one way to roll a 2 or 12, which is why there is only 1 dot under those numbers. Similarly, there are 5 ways to make a 6 or 8, resulting in the 5 dots under those numbers. The next realization is that there is no 7, the most probable number that can be rolled with 2 die.
Enter the robber. This piece in the game is moved whenever a 7 is rolled to block a terrain hex from producing the resource and allows the player to steal a card from another player that is on that terrain hex.
Now that we have gone through the probability of rolling two dice, we learn the importance of how this impacts the gameplay.
The initial game setup in the rules gives the location of where players should place their first settlements and roads. When using this as a avenue for learning, based on what we just learned about probability, learners will place their own settlements and houses at the intersection of terrain hexes that give the best probability for them to obtain resources.
Gameplay continues as stated in the rules. Learners analyze the impact of where they placed the initial settlements and roads. What worked well? What would you change for next time?
Settlers of Catan has a obvious math connection with probability. Playing games with peers, convincing others to make trades, using strategy throughout the game lead the way to connections with other content and skills.
Any game allows for students to work on their social emotional skills. How else could this be connected to content?
- Social Studies and History- does this reflect civilizations from the past? What is the importance of sharing resources with neighboring cities, countries, etc.? Resource management. The impact of the shipping ports and trading in the game
- ELA- What is the story behind the game? Convincing players to trade with you connects to writing an argumentative essay.
- Are there more you can think of?
The pros to using this game as a venue for learning are plentiful. By connecting this to specific learning targets, standards and parts of curriculum, learners experience an authentic way for learners to acquire new content or review content in relevant ways.
Stay in tune for more games to use as tools for education in the Playing to Learn series!