Game Based Learning for High School Students
A virtual business game that begins next year and is based on the New Zealand venture capital industry will help high school students develop enterprising attitudes and behaviours, including business skills. The Venture Capital Game will also help students test their accounting and economics skills in a realistic business environment.
The initial site that explains how the game works is now live and can be found at www.vcgame.co.nz. At the site you can join the mailing list to receive a regular newsletter that explains how game development is progressing, the newest prizes to be announced and most importantly, you can find out when registration for the first game opens, because there are only limited places in the first game.
Each team that registers to play the game receives a password for the secure game site; here teams gain access to a number of business plans of businesses that require venture capital funding. In addition to a list of constantly changing businesses that teams can invest in, weekly news bulletins appear weekly on the site informing the team about what is happening in the economy that may affect their investment decisions. The team with the highest net worth at the end of the game wins.
The Venture Capital Game, being developed by The Small Business Company Limited, is funded by Industry New Zealand. It is envisaged that the game will benefit students and teachers alike because game content has been aligned with the year 11 to 13 accounting and economics curriculum, as well as coming with a ?teacher-only? CD-ROM that shows how the game can be integrated into commerce lessons.
The first game will launch in February and will run for seven weeks ? directly followed by another game starting at the beginning of August 2003.
More information can be found at
The Venture Capital Game
