Tabletop RPG Classroom: In-Game Chemistry Experiments for Elementary School Kids
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- General structuring for teaching chemistry with TTRPGs
- TTRPG chemistry lesson for elementary school kids
General structuring for teaching chemistry with tabletop role-playing games
Before we get to the example, we’re going to cover some general tips for structuring your game around a lesson or educational goal. Much of this will be similar to any subject that you’re teaching (not just for chemistry lessons and not just for elementary school kids). This means that if you’re here looking for general TTRPG classroom info, much of this can be applicable to any class, after school group, or game!
I’m covering this all before the elementary school TTRPG example because it is important to understand the basics for how the example is structured and why we’re doing things the way we are (so that you can take this material and extrapolate it for your particular kids and lessons).
Setting your game’s educational goal(s)
When it comes to setting up intentionally educational TTRPGs, before you start coming up with plots and mechanics and even educational content, you first need to figure out what your goals for your students are since this is going to be what we want to build everything else around.
You don’t want to be trying to shoehorn a concept into an existing game or story idea that doesn’t really fit… and then losing the focus on what you want to teach.
Pick one to two core goals that you hope to accomplish with the tabletop RPG that you’re introducing to your class. What is the purpose of introducing this game?
For chemistry experiments with young kids, these concepts could be something like “understand changes in state” or “learn what the word exothermic means” or “demonstrate how science can impact life”. There’s a range here with topics being purely academic to topics that focus on general big picture concepts with science, so think about your situation and pick a couple that work for your group and that you think could be helped by working into a TTRPG.
Paying attention to your game’s focus
Next, once you have your goal to build from, you’re probably going to start thinking of the game system that you’ll use and the story that you’ll make to surround the topic(s) you chose.
As you do this, make sure to keep the focus on teaching your goal.
If you pick a complex game system that takes several weeks to learn, you could be diverting your students’ focus and time from the core goal (learning about chemistry) and instead putting it on learning about this particular game system… which is not your goal.
For some subjects (like in this interview with D&D teacher Kade Wells), systems like D&D can be great for teaching English and reading because they require critical reading skills to understand, and it provides necessary motivation, so that system meets the goals of the class.
However, for something like chemistry, and especially with young kids, choose a game system that lets students focus on learning the chemistry class goal that you set. This could mean just using a 1d6 system or drawing cards from a deck of standard playing cards for randomization, and that’s OK.
When you’re creating your adventure, watch this as well. Keep your lesson modular (you probably don’t have time to get into a ton of lore and still keep it within a typical class period), so run quick one-shots or have a few short sessions spread out over a few classes… then end there. It doesn’t need to be a full epic campaign to get your educational goals across, and you want students focusing more on the educational concepts anyway.
Include three points of contact with the subject material in your TTRPG
If you look at stories ranging from fairy tales to present day children’s tv shows, when a new concept is being taught, it’s often presented at least three times (think of how The Boy Who Cried Wolf repeated its theme or how Bluey reiterates topics throughout the episode).
This is because we need to interact with something more than once for it to sink in. When teaching, you should also reiterate some of the topics a few times to make sure they stick and students have had enough time to process and absorb the material.
When you look at the example below, watch for the three points of contact and how they drive the core goal home over and over so the concept of things changing when you mix them or observing how things are in their current state can be explored more than once.
Build your chemistry experiment examples into each other and the TTRPG
With those three points of contact, you’ll also want to make sure that they are both built into each other (so they’re related and connected) and that they’re part of the story and/or mechanics that you have included in your tabletop RPG.
Tying them tightly into the game creates the connection that you’re looking for between your players and the material, and it’s the whole point of doing this! So, make sure that your story and your science experiments match!
Now, this all can seem like a lot to watch out for, but it’s really a few very simple points:
- Determine your educational goal
- Keep your mechanics and story simple and focused on the goal
- Use your goal at least three times
- Connect your game ideas to the goal
To help show how to do this specifically for elementary school kids, here’s an example lesson that teaches about chemical changes!
Example TTRPG chemistry lesson for elementary school kids (<8)
Goals, context, and mechanics for your elementary school TTRPG chemistry lesson
Context: Fun Friday hands-on class time for 2nd grade class of 26 students who have not played tabletop RPGs before. Time limit: 90 minutes.
Goals: (1) Understand the concept of chemical changes and (2) get sensory experiment time
Mechanics: Uses single d6 (large inflatable die) for the whole class to roll together to check for success/failure during the encounter
Experiment(s): Make slime to demonstrate how things can change when mixed, interact with the slime to understand its new properties, and change the slime again by adding more to it.
First point of contact: The slime hatchery
In this example, our first point of contact with our goal is going to be during the introduction to our story. For this game’s story, we’re going to tell students that their characters have all gotten jobs at a magical slime hatchery where they are tasked with creating helpful little slime blobs that assist around town by eating trash, filling in roof leaks, or decorating for the upcoming festival by leaving sparkly slime trails everywhere.
The head wizard (you) explains that they can make these slimes by mixing two base components (baking soda and clear glue) to turn them into something completely new!
Give students the baking soda and ask them to describe it.
Give students the clear glue and ask them to describe that.
Then, have them mix it (you may also need to add water) until slime blobs start to form!
Once students have their slime, ask them to describe this new substance and explain how it is different from the baking soda and the clear glue.
Second point of contact: Slime encounter
As they finish this… oh no!! The slimes, they’re confused about what’s going on, and they glob out of the hatchery and start eating everything they see in town! This includes trash they find on the street… and also gardens and a food cart and parts of houses and even the head wizard’s magical hover cart! What do you do to get the slimes to come back?
Let the class, as a whole, come up with some ideas for how to wrangle the slimes. As they come up with ideas (probably chaotically), ask them how they’ll deal with some of the slime’s properties that they pointed out earlier:
- What if it is too sticky?
- What if it seeps through cracks?
- What if it doesn’t stick?
Give kids a “tame” slime to poke, stretch, and scoop until they can find a good way to manipulate it. Have them roll a d6 as a group and let them add modifiers to their roll for all the questions they were able to answer to help them succeed in gathering up the slimes.
Require a few rolls so the group will be able to collect at least some of the slimes. If any get away, suggest that they are maybe hiding in the city and will cause trouble later or that a few tame slimes could help seek them out.
Third point of contact: Tame the slimes
After your students have collected some of the slimes, have the “wizard” suddenly remember that they forgot a key ingredient! You also need to add some magic to help tame the slimes!
Now, bust out some glitter, beads, crinkly plastic grass, pebbles, bits of paper, or other materials for kids to squish into their slimes. Let them add as little or as much as they want and point out how much it varies between students.
Students who just add a little glitter get slightly shiny slime that feels similar to when it started. Students who add a ton of beads or bits of paper could get crunchy, soggy, stiff, or sloppy slime.
Help them use different words to describe the slime and compare these new changes to a buddy’s slime. Also describe how the slime’s abilities would change because you’ve added more to them (this is a key tie in with our theme!!)
Now, you have a whole bunch of awesome magical slimes to help around town! Play out the rest of your story with the slimes helping out with chores, setting up for the festival, or assisting in tracking down any remaining rogue slimes who may be causing trouble (and are in need of some magical glitter).
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What’s shown here can be modified to fit your class and other types of experiments, and it’s meant to be a springboard for other ideas. There’s tons of variations on this one example too – you could have the slimes have stats that change as you add things, you could battle the slimes, you could talk about what happens if two slimes merge… there’s a lot of other ways than just what’s above to drive the same concepts home.
I hope it helps to show a sample tabletop RPG lesson outline for either direct use in your classes or to spark some inspiration for other ideas, and let me know in the comments if you use this or have ideas of your own!
Stay tuned for future lessons as well – the next two “Tabletop RPG Classroom” articles will cover middle school and high school chemistry lessons that feature different systems and subjects to help round out the examples and show how it can be scaled to fit the needs of older kids.
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