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The Baboons’ Dilemma
Don’t tell your students about the power of cooperation — SHOW them with this ingenious twist on a classic game.
Show students The Baboons’ Dilemma video, or walk through the Slideshow with them. Call on two volunteers, and model how to play five rounds of the game, then distribute the appropriate Baboons’ Dilemma Score Sheet found below. Allow students to pair up and play five rounds with a partner (or three rounds for the shorter K-2 version).
After students have finished, have them add up their scores and reveal the big secret: if they had cooperated every time, each student would have caught 75 fish (27 fish for the shorter K-2 version). But in almost every classroom that has played this game, NO ONE catches that many fish! Looking out for yourself doesn’t just hurt the group — it hurts YOU! Discuss how life is filled with situations where it can be tempting to act selfishly — but that acting selfishly is often worse both for other people AND for you.
Awesome…it’s what you do!!!
Please let us know how this lesson went and how we can improve it for the next teacher. Thank you for being a Blue Apple teacher- a teacher who stands out!
Want More?
If you like these lessons, you'll LOVE the Blue Apple project, Moments to Remember, where students form friendships with senior citizens, then use what they learn about their new friends to create meaningful, memorable biographies.
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Share this resource so students in other classrooms can benefit as well!
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