Explore 7 Ecological Footprints review games designed by a teacher to engage students and reinforce curriculum. When students are having fun, they forget they are reviewing, making games a great way to practice Science.

• SCOOT combines review with movement as students rotate between desks and work their way through a set of topic-specific task cards.
• The TERRIBLE Game makes review wonderfully terrible as teams answer questions, uncover unpredictable scores, and use positive and negative points to get closest to zero.
• GRUDGEBALL combines question review with a battle for survival as teams fire cannons, sink opposing ships, and fight to be the last one afloat.
• Turn review into a team battle with BUMP, where correct answers earn shots and students can bump their opponents off the platform for extra points.
• Keep students on their toes with FRAZZLED, where every answer can reveal points, help the opposing team, or uncover a bomb that resets the score to zero.
• The BIG TERRIBLE Game keeps the whole class involved as up to eight teams answer together and watch their scores swing above and below zero.
• TRASHKETBALL™ gets teams racing to answer correctly, then rewards them with shots at the trash can to score points.

When it’s time to review, a little competition can go a long way toward getting students focused, participating, and having fun. The competition gets students paying attention to every question, communicating with their team, and getting genuinely excited when the answer is revealed. The real change happens when students start looking ahead to the next game and realize that the more prepared they are, the better their chances of winning.

And it isn’t just something I’ve seen in my own classroom—research has found significant learning benefits from using educational games with students. See the research.