Where This Fits in Your Curriculum

What Students Will Learn

• Tell power (megawatts) from energy (megawatt-hours) and use both to plan a dam's water, a battery's charge and a slow plant's start.
• Explain why a grid must match supply to use every moment, and what frequency shows about that match.
• Weigh a purchase (a new line, a battery, a peaker, or nothing) against cost and reliability, using the table's own record.
• Describe how each source works and what it costs: coal, gas, peakers, hydro, solar, wind and storage.
• Physics: rearrange P = VI for current and use I squared R to find line losses on the table's own plant line.

Cases Included

• NGSS HS-ESS3-2 - evaluate competing design solutions for energy: at every break each table weighs a new line, a battery, a peaker or nothing against its own record
• NGSS HS-ETS1-3 (narrowed: cost and reliability criteria only) - evaluate a solution on prioritized criteria and trade-offs at each break
• CCSS HSN-Q.A.1 - use units to guide the solution: MW against MWh in North's water plan and the batteries; amps and volts on the line worksheet
• NGSS HS-PS3-1 (partial) - energy accounting in a system: the tank, the batteries and the bar are energy accounts each table keeps; students do not build the model
• CCSS HSA-CED.A.4 (partial, Physics version) - rearrange formulas: every table rearranges P = VI for current and uses I squared R on its own plant line
• AP Environmental Science Unit 6 (narrowed) - how each source operates and what it costs: fuels, solar, hydro, wind, storage, peak demand and the customer button; the environmental-effects objectives are not claimed

Social & Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Aligned to the CASEL framework's core competencies. These are the SEL skills students actively practice while playing.

• Relationship Skills Every deal is struck face to face: Traders walk to another table, agree a price, then make the deal on the board.
• Responsible Decision-Making Tables commit hours ahead on a forecast that is not sure, and at each break buy the right thing or nothing.
• Social Awareness The needle is a commons: every table feels it, and the bars say whose power is missing.
• Self-Management The Operator holds the bar in the green through the drift, the clouds and the failures.

Flexible Class Sizes

How the Game Plays Out

Hand Each Student Their Own Sheet

One click on the teacher dashboard prints a dossier for every role - background, goals, key facts, and their confidential briefing - plus the primary-source packet and a vocabulary sheet. Print them, or save as PDF, so each student reads their role on paper instead of huddling around one screen. The app still runs the votes and the action; the paper just carries the reading.

Primary Sources

Every role includes real historical documents. Students read them because they need the information to make their case.

Key Terms Students Will Learn

After the Game: Debrief Questions

1. Find the needle's lowest point on Day 2. Each table: were you short then? If you were, who covered you?
2. In the company table on the big screen, find North's row. Its last column, A bigger plant line, shows what that line earned or would have earned, and its price. Did it pay back its price, or would it have? What limits North more: its plant line or its water?
3. At $30 a ton, coal still cost less than gas. At about what carbon price would gas cost less?
4. What did your table buy at Break 2, or why did it buy nothing? How did that choice play out on Day 3?
5. Could a seller here make more by holding power back?