This is a reflection on our nationalism board game project

What did nationalism mean for people around Canada? Nationalism in Canada was heavily defined by its union of colonies outside of the U.S.. Many colonies joined together over the course of about 35 years with the goal of an independent nation. This was mainly due to the threat of the Americans and their desire to take control of more land; in addition, Britain wanted to finally get a country established in the Americas. Nationalism meant independence. 

 

Our learning process began with learning about and defining nationalism and Canadian nationalism. At the same time we studied confederation. The bulk of the learning in this stage was a “Confederation Simulation” where we split up into “colonies”; each with its own goals and problems. Then we came up with our demands and requirements for joining confederation. After that, we negotiated for our demands and came up with a set of plans that would happen after confederation. Each colony chose yes or no to join the confederation and we ended. 

 

Then we played with different board games to generate ideas on what we would do. Then we were split into groups, except me, (teacher forgot to sort me in }:( ) to create a board game representing a part of nationalism that covered an event before 1900. 

 

I decided to cover the Red River Rebellion. First I decided on the style of game and chose a Risk type game involving 2 players but with a lot of extra rules and restrictions. Afterwards, I proceeded to write a set of rules that explained how the game started and  proceeded and listed the extra rules for each of the 2 sides involved in this battle. Then I began building the board and creating the map of Rupert’s land (the area of the game). Second to lastly I cut out 100 game pieces and employed the help of fellow students to write numbers on them. 

a photo of the board game

Once all board games were complete, we had the grade 10s and 11s play them and critique us. 

 

Overall this project was repetitive as we did a board game last year. However I enjoyed this as my experience from last year gave me some knowledge and allowed me to create a better end product.