A storm is coming. A mysterious illness has your community on edge. Residents have questions about their safety and the city's disaster readiness plan. City officials stand by their reports. What's the truth?

iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts is a role-playing simulation scenario hosted on the iThrive Sim platform that invites high school students in civics, history, and social studies classes to uncover the truth together.

CIVIC LEARNING POWERED BY PLAY

In iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts, high school students play as journalists reporting on a breaking story. To get the truth, they must find credible sources and collaborate with their peers to get the story out with accuracy and without bias.
While playing through iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts, students build their media literacy skills as they practice how to effectively source information and build their understanding of how bias informs news reporting and interpretation.

BRING ITHRIVE SIM: FOLLOW THE FACTS TO YOUR STUDENTS:

Register on the iThrive Sim platform.

Click the button below and complete the registration form on the iThrive Sim website. (Note: Clicking this button will take you to a new website.)

REGISTER FOR ITHRIVE SIM

Wait for a confirmation email.

After completing the registration form on the iThrive Sim website, you will receive an email from a member of the iThrive team confirming your registration.

Follow the steps on the Teacher Checklist.

Click the button below and follow the steps outlined in the Teacher Checklist. If you have any questions at any point, contact us at support@ithrivegames.org.

DOWNLOAD THE CHECKLIST

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Time NeedediThrive Sim: Follow the Facts entails:

  • 45 minutes of teacher prep
  • 45 min. of optional pre-sim activities
  • 45 min. of optional between-episode activities
  • 60 minutes for the full simulation (split into two 30-min episodes)
  • 45 min. of optional post-sim lessons

Classroom SetupiThrive Sim: Follow the Facts can be run in online, hybrid, or in-person learning environments.

If you are playing iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts in person, we recommend seating students in their session groups (see Student Roles section), facing each other so they can easily collaborate.

Learning StandardsiThrive Sim: Follow the Facts was designed for grades 9-12 and written at an 8th grade reading level.

The simulation meets state content standards, national College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) standards, and social and emotional learning competencies. View them here.


There are five student roles in iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts, four of these roles must be filled in order to play the simulation (you can drop the Transportation role if necessary).
If more than five students will be participating, divide students into groups of four or five, and run a session for each group on the iThrive Sim teacher dashboard. 
Tech Specs
The gameplay of iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts happens on a web-based, device-agnostic platform and is available in any space with access to Wi-Fi and a 1:1 device such as a laptop or tablet.
iThrive Sim was designed to function within school firewalls. If your school has advanced firewalls, please contact your IT administrator to request access to the site.

Lesson Plans
To extend and deepen the iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts experience, we recommend these civic and social and emotional learning activities which can be used before and after the scenario:

iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts was developed in partnership with the Situation Room Experience.

iThrive Sim has been made possible in part by National Endowment for the Humanities CARES: Cultural Organizations (Education). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in iThrive Sim: Follow the Facts Web resource do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for Humanities.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.