Environmental Jeopardy

During April we try to provide a few events focused around Earth Day – this year we’re offering a story time, a recycled jewelry program, a story stroll at the park during the Park & Rec Department Earth Day celebration, and Environmental Jeopardy for the middle schoolers.

We give the kids five categories (Recycling, Food & Health, Environment, ) with answers ranging from 10 – 50 points.  Overall, the board has fifty questions – all about the environment.  Just like on Jeopardy, the kids choose a category and point value and we give them the answer.  Once the answer has been read , the kids raise a bright colored piece of paper if they know the question… answering with, “What is…?”  When the game is over we total the scores and give out small gift cards or prizes.  And our yearly tradition is to provide an extra-special snack – dirt cake!

We play this game each week in the summer with book trivia about popular, classic, and school list books that the middle school kids are familiar with.  Our game board is merely a foam board with library pockets attached sporting each point value.  I’m sure we could make it high-tech using a PowerPoint presentation, but this system works well for us.  And it’s great because questions and answers fit on 3×5″ notecards and they fit perfectly in library pockets.  It’s a fairly inexpensive program – most of your cost is going to be time in coming up with trivia questions and answers.  I think this is a great game to get kids interested and excited about reading and books.