Education Resources to help teach the 2010 Winter Olympics (6 of10): Mario and Sonic

I currently work for the Consolarium project at Learning and Teaching Scotland. The Consolarium is the Scottish Centre for Games based Learning and Innovation in Eduaction.

We believe that there is a lot of potential in using commercially available computer games that have been build for entertainment but combined with some good creative thought and pedagogy can be ‘retro fitted’  for education.

In the past the Consolarium has done a lot of work with Mario and Sonic at the Bejing Olympics we even organized a national competition for Scottish School Children to compete against each other at the Scottish Learning Festival.

Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics provides another great opportunity to introduce children to the Winter Olympics using the power of Games Based Learning.

I have embedded the trailer (YouTube Video) for the game below so you can find out more about what it offers:


I was out at Gavinburn Primay School yesterday who were just launching their Winter Olympics topic. The whole of P3, P4 and P5 are involved in the work and they will be using the game and developing a thematic approach to learning about the Winter Olympics over the next six weeks. As part of this work the three classes involved (or should I call them Norway, Canada and Russia!) have been kitted out with a Nintendo Wii and will be making use of the Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics game.

The game itself is a ‘hook’ and provides a contextual hub for other learning activities to bolted on to.

Using games in this way can create incredibly powerful opportunities to develop a wide range of interests and skills within young people. Importantly, games have real cultural reference for children and if used in the right way can help build relationships between their peers and their class teacher.

Here are a list of some of the exciting activities that classes have collaboratively planned with their teachers. It’s not an inclusive list because just like any project like this it will evolve over time depending on interest and the direction of learning.

Activities will include:

• The class study of a partisipating country (Canada, Japan, Norway or Russia)

• Research into different Winter Olympic Sports

• Finding out all about what we mean by winter

• Creative and immersive writing based around the event

• A video conference with a Canadian school

• Modern Foreign language learning based on the countries the children will study

• Animation linked to the Olympics

• A Winter Olympic closing ceremony

I had a quick chat (blip TV video below) with one of the P5 pupils about the project and she seemed pretty excited about the learning that was going to take place. Remember she has only started the topic about three hours ago!

If you have not used Games Based learning with the children in your class before why not start with your Winter Olympics Unit and get a bit of Mario and Sonic in your life!