Academics
SOUL Seeking: Board game
For her SOUL Seeking project, Grade 8 student Dinah O. has delved into the history and traditions of Shawnigan to develop a board game, loosely inspired by The Game of Life with a track to follow based upon dice rolls and challenge and question cards. Originally Dinah had decided to base the game on general School history, but the project has since evolved to become about the culture and history of the School’s boarding houses specifically.
She notes that Rosemary Dolman, long-serving Shawnigan employee, archivist and School Museum curator, has been instrumental in helping her gather facts and titbits of trivia to construct her game. Graphic design teacher Maite Urzua set her up with digital illustration app Pro Create on an iPad, and simultaneously to designing her board game, Dinah is able to record her progress in order to incorporate a time lapse development video with her final presentation. Fellow student Brianna H. is helping Dinah round out her vision by 3-D printing House-themed chips for use by the game’s players. Each of these player chips will represent one House, for example, a 3-D printed tree chip to symbolize the Grade 8 girls’ Stanton House.
Not only has the project been fun, says Dinah, but she’s learned more than she imagined about the School’s history and traditions, thanks to Ms. Dolman and the School Museum. The ultimate goal of her SOUL Seeking project is to have the game and all its pieces printed and ready to play. There’s every chance that each boarding house can look forward to having its very own copy of Dinah’s board game on hand in the common room for current and future students to enjoy.
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.
Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 13 –18 on Canada’s beautiful West Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
