Using zombies to teach kids geography

Razen Cain sez, "David Hunter is a public school teacher who is trying to raise cash on Kickstarter to create a Standards Based curriculum that uses a zombie apocalypse to get kids invested in learning geography. It's a genius idea and David comes across so passionate in the video that it's impossible to say no to him."

What we’re doing here, is teaching how to be a geographer by learning skills needed to survive a zombie apocalypse. Imagine being in a classroom where instead of reading about maps, you’re designing them to show the spread of a zombie outbreak. Instead of reading about the distribution of resources on Earth in a textbook, you are researching available resources to plan your post-outbreak settlement. I’m not just talking about learning where places are or memorizing capitals of states or countries, I’m talking about learning the deeper concepts of geography that geographers actually use. And all in an exciting scenario.

Zombie-Based Learning: Geography taught in Zombie Apocalypse

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: books • crowdfunding • education • happy mutants • kickstarter • submitterator • zombies

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5onthe5

Great idea.

I’m a high school (here we call it “secondary”) teacher in the UK. Certainly in this country, there would be nothing to stop this teacher from doing a whole sequence of lessons based around this scenario. Obviously he might not be able to count the zombie-based work towards his students’ final grades, but it would be an awesome way to teach the skills and ideas that they need for an exam etc.

My point is: the notion that you have to “rebel” against The System in order to teach creatively is a myth. The exams are what they are, the set texts are what they are, but how you get your students there is up to you. I can’t think of a single school head who wouldn’t be delighted with what this teacher is proposing.

Unless things are very different in the USA.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  It’s important to remember that some of their schools can’t even teach evolution.
http://twitter.com/SirTomate SirTomate

Also cool

http://www.amazon.com/Theories-International-Politics-Zombies-Drezner/dp/0691147833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336635404&sr=8-1
http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

You can imagine some parents getting upset by this. The idea of their children doing assignments on how not to get eaten alive might be a little off-putting.
falnfenix

…i would like to take this class.
http://kenzoid.com Ken Kennedy

This is completely awesome. Ooops…make that Awesome, with a capital ‘A’.
Oliver Crosby

A little bit too contrived for me. I was cynical at a young age. Learning from fiction is awesome – but why do we have to justify that education by calling it education?
.

Had basically this on the Atari 800 in 1984.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_USA
- zoink
  
  I loved that game! The fuzz-bodies were basically zombies.
  
  I’ve been meaning to get a c64 emulator up just so I can play Agent USA again.
autark

finger tats.

10 to 1 that guy has full on zombie sleeve tattoos.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Weird, I didn’t notice when I first watched it. Funny how tattoos can give you an entirely different perspective on a person (whether accurate or not).
- http://twitter.com/lisabeIIe Lisa Ferrier
  
  10 to 1 says… hippogriff!
GawainLavers

Zombies taught me to hate the internet.