I developed Fire Tag back when I worked for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Being a product of the National Park Service, Fire Tag is firmly in the public domain. With this project, my goal was to create a fast, fun, and interesting activity for the 2012 Santa Monica Mountains Science Festival.
The good news is that 100+ kids enjoyed Fire Tag at the 2012 Science Festival. They didn’t learn quite as much as we’d hoped, but we’d always prioritized inspiration over information, so that was okay. On reflection, we found that the biggest obstacle to learning had nothing to do with the game design or the lesson design. Rather, it was our naïve logistics - we didn’t have enough people to organize waiting lines and play sessions. The resulting confusion made it hard to hold reflective discussions. However, the take home message from the day was that Fire Tag had lots of potential as a playful learning activity.
Unfortunately, after I left the NPS, Fire Tag got lost among the very many good ideas competing for very limited funds. This was a terrible shame, so I’ve updated the rules and materials, and published them online here.
As I expand the educational scope of Mindful Mammoth, I hope to begin using Fire Tag in some of our outreach programs with local groups. I also hope that other folks may find this game, and try it out with their kids or their friends. Maybe you will do this. I hope so!
- TimFire Tag
I developed Fire Tag back when I worked for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Being a product of the National Park Service, Fire Tag is firmly in the public domain. With this project, my goal was to create a fast, fun, and interesting activity for the 2012 Santa Monica Mountains Science Festival.
The good news is that 100+ kids enjoyed Fire Tag at the 2012 Science Festival. They didn’t learn quite as much as we’d hoped, but we’d always prioritized inspiration over information, so that was okay. On reflection, we found that the biggest obstacle to learning had nothing to do with the game design or the lesson design. Rather, it was our naïve logistics - we didn’t have enough people to organize waiting lines and play sessions. The resulting confusion made it hard to hold reflective discussions. However, the take home message from the day was that Fire Tag had lots of potential as a playful learning activity.
Unfortunately, after I left the NPS, Fire Tag got lost among the very many good ideas competing for very limited funds. This was a terrible shame, so I’ve updated the rules and materials, and published them online here.
As I expand the educational scope of Mindful Mammoth, I hope to begin using Fire Tag in some of our outreach programs with local groups. I also hope that other folks may find this game, and try it out with their kids or their friends. Maybe you will do this. I hope so!
- Tim