Civil War Battle Stations - ENGAGING History card game!

Sorry for the broken images. I am going to fix that as soon as I have an opportunity to take new screenshots. I'm not sure what happened there.

This year I began to gamify my classes. I have been taking it slow, but recently I decided to really jump in, and I am so glad that I did!

My big success this week was creating a Civil War card game that greatly engaged my students in learning about the battles of the Civil War using about 60 minutes of class time. I had so much fun creating the game, and my students had a lot of fun playing it!

Here is how I developed the game...

I had a dilemma. We were nearing the end of the semester, and I needed to fit my Civil War unit in before the first semester was over, but that meant that the unit could only be two weeks long.

I had no idea where to start! What to focus on, what to skip... I knew that I had a great activity in mind with History Blueprint's "Civil War Battle Stations" activity, but in prior years it had taken three or four class periods for students to slooowwwwly navigate through the 12 battles in the activity. That was way too long. My students simply weren't engaged in the activity all by itself.

I really liked the activity, but I wanted to add some game mechanics in there to motivate my students. We've been using Classcraft, so I decided that XP would be an excellent reward for my students.

But how would I grant XP? Correct answers? That didn't seem motivating enough. The first group done? That wouldn't guarantee that students would try to get the correct information.

Instead, I decided to make a card game that would extend upon the activity.
I had so much fun putting the game together and coming up with the random events! Here is how the lesson played out:
Students would still have to navigate the battle stations (posted around the room) and fill out the chart (battle name, victor, location, and how the battle affected the outcome of the war), but there was an additional element.

Since the beginning of the unit, my students were organized into teams that were nicknamed with state names. Certain states, like South Carolina, were Confederate states. Others, like New York, were Union states. I also had groups that were the border states, which were the states that remained in the Union but still had slaves. I made it clear that the teams were named as such just to help students remember the two sides in the Civil War, and that I didn't believe that students had one perspective over the other.

We began navigating the "battle stations" yesterday. When students visited a "battle station," they would record the information from the battle on the chart and then come see me. I would check for accuracy, and if all was correct, they would get to choose one of the cards that I made.




If the student was part of a "Union" state, and if the Union won the battle that they had just recorded, the student would get a green-colored card (printed on green paper). The green cards were items or good events. The same goes for if the student was part of a "Confederate" state, and if the Confederacy won the battle.

If the student's side (Union or Confederate) lost the battle, they would have to pick a red-colored card. The red cards were negative events.







There were some cards that negated each other.

Here is one example:

The goal of the game was to survive the Civil War. Two-thirds of my students made it through the war alive. Even when students "die" in the war, they continue to play the game and visit the battle stations, as each card was worth a random number of XP. I had the cards' values written down on my master copy of the cards, so I knew how much each card was worth, but my students did not. This provided a little bit of mystery!

Once the game was over, students that survived the Civil War earned 500 bonus XP. Students also gained XP for each card. They earned XP for both good and bad cards, as there were more Union victories and I wanted everyone to have an equal chance of gaining XP.

Instead of taking four class periods, the activity took one and a half. Instead of students wanting to sit out, all students were engaged, even those who generally try to avoid classwork. The key is that it didn't seem like classwork. In fact, it wasn't classwork. It was a game! And through the game, my students learned how each "battle station" event affected the outcome of the Civil War. They were able to see how the war played out, and they had fun doing so!

Here is the "Civil War Battle Stations Card Game" document with the cards that I created. Feel free to make a copy and make the cards your own!

"Civil War Battle Stations Card Game" Document

My plan is to spruce up the cards a bit and adding more as time goes on, but I'm excited to get these out there! Enjoy!