Pirate Math, Part 2

In a previous post I mentioned that I'm working on a new way to learn Math based on a Pirate Game. The plot of the game is beginning to form.

The player (a boy for the purposes of this post) finds a piece of a treasure map while hunting around in their attic. A closer inspection reveals that the treasure is buried on an island someone in the Caribbean. The boy excitedly tells his parents but they laugh and ignore him. Frustrated, the boy decides to stowaway on a liner and try to find the island on his own. But after a few days at sea, the liner is attacked and boarded by some pirates. The pirates capture the boy and decide to use him as a cabin boy on their pirate ship. The boy keeps the treasure map a secret and hopes that his travels with the pirates will allow him to solve the mystery.

The plot is just in the early stages and I'd like the boy to stumble upon a greater mystery while looking for the treasure.

Of course, the whole point of the game is to allow players to learn Math in a fun and natural setting, so the first part of the Game will introduce money, counting, addition and subtraction. The boy earns copper coins for the work he does on the ship, and he can see the number of coins increase as the days go by on the ship (addition). When the ship docks at the first port, the boy goes to the market to buy some pirate clothes. Each item costs a certain number of copper coins, and the player can see the number of coins drop as he buys each item (subtraction).

Rather than require the player to perform arithmetic drills, I hope to introduce natural uses of arithmetic throughout the game at various intervals. This should reduce the boredom factor as well as allowing the complexity to be gradually increased.

More on the Pirate Math game soon.

Comments

[Danielle Troiano]

When you couple play and imagination with learning, you know you've got a winner. If you had an educational publisher pick the game up, kids could happily be learning and playing this game, as a supplement to math class.

[Graham Glass]

Hi Danielle,

The Pirate Math game is going to be free and available online via edu20.org.

Cheers,
Graham