Science content can be viewed as a narrative, a story. So have your students assemble in a circle and tell a science story, chapter upon chapter. If someone forgets part of the narrative, others chime in to help. If you are teaching about plate tectonics for example, your students can begin with Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift and end with the discovery of magnetic stripes. Younger students could create a story centered on the topic of pollination—allowing children to add bees, butterflies, fruit, flowers, grocery stores, people and what-not to the unfolding story.

A variant of this game was taught to me (Suzanne) by Nitai Deranja of the Living Wisdom Schools (Thanks Nitai.) It’s called “Fortunately/Unfortunately.” In Fortunately/Unfortunately, students tell a progressive story. But in this case students begin their turn with the word “Fortunately” or “Unfortunately.” This game, when turned into a science game, can be quite challenging; it requires knowledge of all the effects of a particular natural event. For example, Player 1 says: “Unfortunately, an earthquake occurred yesterday.” Player 2: “Fortunately, the earthquake only registered 5.1 on the Richter Scale.” Player 3: “Unfortunately, the epicenter was in downtown San Francisco.” Player 4: “Fortunately, seismic gaps indicated an earthquake was probable. Player 5: “Unfortunately, seismic gaps can only predict earthquake probability within a window of 10 years or more.” Etc.