Did The Game of Life: The Struggles That Native Americans Face in Their Healthcare Systems

Overarching Question: How does living on a reservation affect the extent to which natives receive
medical treatment?

Objectives:

1. Learn about the disparities between quality of doctors and access to doctors
2. Learn about the quality and funding of medical facilities
3. Learn about how the self-determination of native American health care facilities has been
an advantage or disadvantage for natives living on reservations
4. Learn about the access to medical education for natives living on reservations

Lesson Plan:

1. Introduction (4 minutes)

2. Pose our guiding question and objectives (2 minutes)

3. Pass out a KWL (what you Know about the topic, what you Want to learn, and what you
Learned) and ask to fill out the K and W part of the chart. (3 minutes)

Begin Simulation/ game:

4. Hand out cards with “Native” or “Non-Native” classifications on them, with either “doctor,”
“healthy,” “sick,” or “in college,” to each kid in the class and have students separate into the
two main groups to start the simulation. The roles will be explained in the Prezi slides. (3
minutes)

5. Go through simulation, with Prezi slides. (10 minutes)

6. End simulation, give more incentives (ex: two stickers vs one) to nonnative doctors to
represent underfunding in native facilities for doctors and supplies, potentially making the “in
college” students want to go to the nonnative facilities rather than work as native doctors. (2
minutes)

7. Restart simulation with new roles (5 minutes)

8. End second simulation.

9.Class discussion about how “doctors” on the “reservation” felt not getting as much incentive
(stickers) and how “natives” felt not having as much “access to doctors.” Review the surveys and
conclude (answering our guiding question and asking, “what did you learn?” and “how are your
answers different after doing the simulation?”). (8 minutes)
Materials:

1. Stickers to use as “payment” for the Doctors

2. KWL chart for students to fill in
3. Prezi
4. Cards with students’ roles on them (ratios of each card in each main group based on class size)

Roles:

1. Doctor: Heals the Sick and makes them Healthy; nonnative Doctors take 20 seconds (to
represent access to better facilities), native Doctors take 30 seconds (to represent lack of quality
in facilities).
2. Sick: Try and infect the Healthy to make them Sick, you can only infect one Healthy person
(Doctors and College students can’t be infected); go to the Doctor to be healed, must be seen
within one minute or you sit down and are out of the round.
3. Healthy: Try to keep from getting Sick; if you get Sick, your role is switched to that of a Sick
person (try to infect one Healthy, go to the Doctor to be healed, sit down after one minute if not
healed by a Doctor). If you were already Sick, you can get Sick again if someone else infects you.
4. In College: Shadow Doctors; can heal the Sick but takes twice as long as the Doctors. At the end
of the first simulation, the students must then find a job (does not have to be in the group they
originally started in; jobs are first come-first serve).