Calorie Counter: A Board Game for Teaching Nutrition to Grade Six Students

Abstract

© 2020 The use of games for teaching and learning scientific concepts is gaining popularity in recent years and board games are among them. Board games are widely used to teach several scientific concepts; however, there is a lack of board games for teaching topic of nutrition topic for grade six students. Therefore, a collaborative board game named “Calorie Counter” has been created to help teach grade six students the concept of nutrition. A panel of six educational experts and three science teachers was asked to validate the utility of the game. After revision, the board game was tried out on a group of six post-graduate students at Mahidol University and 102 grade six students from three different primary schools in Nakhon Pathom Province and Samut Sakorn Province in Thailand. The results showed that the Calorie Counter board game was effective in improving grade six students’ understanding of nutrition to some extent. Most of the participant students felt that the Calorie Counter board game is engaging, challenging, and joyful. They appreciated the collaborative environment of the game and enjoyed playing it. The article discusses the genesis of the Calorie Counter board game and provides guidelines for its improvement to enhance the understanding of nutrition for grade six students.