Go Extinct!, a Go Fish-style card game, teaches players how to read evolutionary trees as well as land vertebrate natural history. Instead of collecting sets of numbers, however, players collect closely related groups of animals, called clades (def: all of the animals that descended from a common ancestor). Winning requires players to understand the hierarchical structure of evolutionary trees while the game’s vocabulary emphasizes traits that scientists use to classify vertebrates in the tree. Over 200 students, ranging from 5th grade to college undergraduates, have played versions of the game. Afterwards, students are able to define a clade (an important concept in biology) and make evolutionary observations such as, “Chickens are dinosaurs and we’ve been eating them!” One middle school explored evolution by creating expansion packs for Go Extinct! Students successfully incorporated mechanics about catastrophes and geologic ages as well as adapted the game for more specific groups of animals, like the cat family.
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