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Parasite Patrol: Lifecycle Game

Author(s): Christina Nykyforuk1, Mindi Summers, Constance Finney

University of Calgary

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Parasite Patrol is a detective-style game about parasite lifecycles suitable for use in university or K-12 settings. The goal of the game is for participants to role-play parasite detectives who are investigating one of three parasite-infected…

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Parasite Patrol is a detective-style game about parasite lifecycles suitable for use in university or K-12 settings. The goal of the game is for participants to role-play parasite detectives who are investigating one of three parasite-infected hosts: a human, cow, or dog. Each host is infected with five parasites. Players must find all of the parasite clues for their host through a matching memory-style game. They must then use the information on the cards to create all five of the parasite lifecycles. The first team to correctly pin all of the parasite lifecycles onto their host wins the #1 parasite detective badge. Parasite Patrol consists of several sections: the gameboard, clue cards, clue card covers, and host cards that can be printed or used in an online format. We also provide a facilitation guide and discussion questions to accompany the game. More information about the creation of the game and evidence of activity effectiveness in an undergraduate setting can be found in the linked undergraduate honours thesis. We welcome suggestions and revisions from the community.

Licensed under CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International according to these terms

Version 1.0 - published on 13 May 2023 doi:10.25334/KD9C-SW13 - cite this

Keywords

  1. parasites
  2. Game
  3. life cycle
  4. Board game

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Description

Parasite Patrol can accommodate a range of players. However, the ideal set-up is six players, with students divided into three teams of two.

Game play: Once students are divided into three teams, the game starts by having each team flip over one host card. The host card that each team flips over reveals the host that they are assigned to investigate during the game (human, cow, or dog host).

After establishing which host each team will be investigating, team human goes first, followed by team cow and team dog. To begin, team human must flip over two of their human clue cards, with the goal of finding the matching cards. Each clue card contains information about the parasite species infecting that host. If a match is not found, the students must flip the two cards back over and pass the turn to the next host’s team, team cow. However, if they do find a match, students read the information on the matching clue cards out loud. Using these clues, the players must “pin” the parasite life stages onto the human host by dragging the parasite pieces onto the correct locations.

The turn is then passed to the next team, and the same process continues. While playing, each team has the opportunity to find one super clue hidden among their clue cards, signified by a red question mark, and reveal it on the gameboard. Super clues contain additional pieces of information about parasites and their lifecycles. All three teams must finish finding their matching clue cards and correctly pinning all five parasite lifecycles onto their host. The team that is the first to complete this mission wins the #1 parasite detective badge. 

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