Class Time Zone Zap – 10 to 50 Players

What You Should Know Before You Play

The object of the game is for your students to be on the team that wins the most GeoPlunge cards. For this game, the portion of each GeoPlunge card that matters is the color coded border at the top of the card, which reflects the state’s time zone (red for eastern states, green for central states, blue for mountain states and purple for pacific states as well as Alaska and Hawaii).

Throughout the game, a team tries “Zap” the card then played by the other team. You Zap another team’s card when you play a card that has

The same color coded border at the top of the card as the card you are trying to Zap.

For example, if a player from one team plays Texas, the other team could Zap that card by playing Missouri because both of those cards have the same color coded border at the top (since both states are both primarily in the central time zone).

Divide the students into two teams with an equal number of players on both teams (if you have an extra student, let that student be the referee). Use the GeoPlunge cards only, and do not shuffle the deck after the game begins.

How to Play

¨         Deal each player on each team 1 GeoPlunge card.

¨         The game is played one round at a time, with each round consisting of 1 player from each team going to the front of the room.

¨         Each round, a player from one team goes to the front of the room first, and that player does not show his or her card until the other team decides which player from their team to send to the front of the room.

¨         For the first round, the teacher chooses which team shall go first (i.e., send a player to the front of the room first). After that, whichever team wins a round goes first to begin the next round.

¨         The team that goes second in a round (the “second team” for that round) tries to send a player to the front of the room who will Zap the other player’s card (i.e., have the same color coded border at the top of the card) but the second team doesn’t know what the first team’s player’s card is so it is a guess on their part as to who to send up. If they guess right, that is, if the card on the player from the second team Zaps the card of the player on the first team (i.e., has the same color coded border at the top), the second team’s player wins that round and gets to take the first team’s player’s card. Otherwise, the first team’s player wins the round and gets to take the second team player’s card.

¨         The game ends when each player has had a turn to go to the front of the room.

¨         Whichever team has the most cards at the end of the game is the winner. The number of cards a team has equals the number of cards each player on that team has.