Science Museum Trumps

Students use our ‘trumps’ template on their gallery visit to record objects that they like, then score them based on their properties and create a card game they can play.

Year groups: 7-9 (ages 11-14)

Educational objectives

To use prior knowledge and observational skills to choose objects in a gallery and give them a score based on their properties. To be able to argue the rationale for these choices and then use the cards to play a ‘trumps’ card tournament.

Pre-Visit

Post-Visit

Key student learning

All objects are made from materials that have particular properties.
When objects are designed the materials they are made from are chosen for a reason.
Depending on the purpose of the object, certain properties are more important than others.
Using materials for an aesthetic reason that has nothing to do with the object’s purpose can be important in attracting a market for that object.
Some objects have a more important role in the way we live our lives, or have had a bigger historical impact, than other objects - but this is not always a factor in their appeal.

Before the visit

Print out the Science Museum Trumps cards onto paper (one sheet per student or two sheets per small group). This is the initial research copy, so doesn’t need to be on card.

Decide if you want the students to draw or photograph the objects they choose in the gallery and obtain the necessary equipment for the visit. If you want to pre-select some objects for students to focus on (which allows more opportunity for discussion, see below) then come to the Museum on a planning visit and photograph the objects you choose, making a note of where they are in the galleries.

Alternatively use the objects listed on the Challenge of Materials or Plasticity gallery pages, which already have an image and helpful information.

Encourage the students to bring in any packs of trumps games that they or their siblings possess and play them in small groups. This will familiarise them with the rules of the game if they have not played before (see below) and the importance of fair and honest scores for each category.

Rules

The cards are shuffled and dealt between the players, who hold them face down.
All players turn their uppermost card and the youngest player in the group chooses a category that he/she thinks he/she can win. This player challenges the other players to beat him/her at the same category with their topmost card.
Whoever has the highest number wins all the other upturned cards and puts them at the bottom of his/her pack.
If other players have the same score, all the cards go in the middle. The players who had the same top score play again using their next card with a new category picked by the same person as in the previous round; winner takes all.
Play passes to the winner of that round, who then turns his/her next card and chooses a category to challenge the other players.
Play continues until one player has won all the cards.

On the visit

Students work individually or in pairs to choose objects in the gallery that they think are particularly cool or interesting. Encourage them to choose diverse objects that might be different from what others are choosing (you can introduce an element of competition to encourage students to search for more unusual objects) and discourage them from going around in large groups sharing scores, as this will result in a smaller final range of cards to play with.

If you want increased discussion and debate when you return to the classroom, direct the students to cover a number of gallery objects already chosen by you on a planning visit.

Students should score these objects in their pairs and then compare their ratings back in the classroom. For example, in our Challenge of Materials gallery you could include the glass bridge across the gallery, the Perspex guitar in the ‘Plastics’ display case, the Damascus steel sword next to the ‘Metals’ display case, the bulletproof vest in the ‘Protective clothing’ case and the carpet dress in the ‘Unusual materials’ case. You will need at least 20 different cards for a good game, but not all need to feature objects chosen by you.

When students have chosen an object they need to record its name and make an image for their card by drawing or photographing it while they are on gallery. Encourage students to record the name accurately as this will really help them with their research after the visit. If they can find an unusual fact while in the gallery they can write it on the card, but this can also be done later as a follow-up classroom or homework activity. We don't recommend getting students to do a lot of writing in the gallery - we want them to look at the objects!

Using the scorecard as a guide students need to decide what score they will give the various properties of the object they have chosen. They may also find it helpful to write a few brief notes on the back of the card to remind them why they scored it as they did, because it may be a week or more before they have to justify their scores in class.

Where an object is made of more than one material they should base their ratings on the main material - e.g. the Perspex guitar includes wood and metal but is mainly made of Perspex, so scores for strength, flexibility and transparency should be based on that material. Other scores such as weight, importance and coolness can be judged on the object as a whole.

Please ensure that your students are respectful towards the objects in the gallery - with properties such as strength, flexibility and weight they will need to come up with their score based on observation, not physical testing!

The aim is to be fair and even-handed across all the objects chosen to enable the game to be played at the end (i.e. not all the categories can have the highest score, even if the object is very cool). If a group have given all their objects top scores for every category this is not going to go down well with the rest of the class!

To make some of the judgments students will need to use careful observation and apply their prior knowledge of certain materials. There is no definitive answer; the categories of strength, flexibility and weight would require testing and measuring to be accurate and the category of importance may require further research. However, for this exercise students just need to come up with their best guess and be able to justify their scoring when they compare it to other students' cards, so their rationale must be well thought out.

Tell students that they may need to change their ratings as they see more objects so that they are a true reflection of the objects in front of them.

After the students have filled in their sheets they can challenge one another to a game over lunch or on the way home to get a taste of what’s to come. Remind students not to lose the sheets - they’ll need them when they return to the classroom. To ensure none get lost you might want to collect them in to take back to school.

After your visit

Back in the classroom, encourage discussion and debate by getting students each to pick one card they have written, explain why they picked the object and justify how they have scored each category. If other students have chosen that object, particularly if it is one of your pre-chosen objects, do they agree? What do the rest of the class think? Can they use effective arguments to get everyone to agree with them? Set a time limit, e.g. two minutes, for argument from both sides.

If no clear decision is agreed then have a vote on what the class think is the most accurate score for that object, or calculate the average score by adding all the numbers and dividing by the number of groups. Do this for each category for each object (or as many as time allows) to come up with the definitive class pack. An average trumps game has around 30 cards, but any number above about 20 cards will work well.

Consider how the scores have been allocated for each category listed on the cards. For example, in the flexibility category, ‘not bendy at all’ has the highest score. However, some objects need to be very flexible and this is not a failing on their part.

Allow time for students to finalise their cards by:

Researching an unusual fact for each object they have chosen
Sourcing a photograph if they haven't taken one (try our Challenge of Materials or Plasticity gallery pages or Picture Library or do an internet image search)
Amending the scores following the class discussion

They can then be dropped into the Science Museum editable 'trumps' template [ppt]. (The template must be saved and then opened in Powerpoint, in order to be edited.)

Print the finished cards (onto thin card if you have it) and get the students to carefully cut them out, ready to play.

Organise a tournament where everyone has the full pack of cards and the class is split into gaming groups of six to eight students. Students in each group play one another until one student wins. All the winners from the various groups then have a play-off to come up with a class winner.

Extensions

Ask students to decide which of the objects they would save if the Museum were on fire (if size and weight were not a problem). Why choose this object? How does it score on the importance and coolness rating? Is it the most valuable? What is that judgment based on? Get students together into groups to agree on what they will save, get each group to present their view to the class, then reach a consensus about which object the class values most.

As a STEM-based homework challenge, ask students to make a box for the cards by designing a template on a single sheet of card that can be folded into shape. This should have a cover design to appeal to potential players, as well as instructions on how to play. If the students were selling these cards, how much would people pay for them and what would be the profit margin? Handy hint - students will need to work out the total cost of producing them, including what they will pay for photocopying, paper and labour, and then decide on a ‘mark-up’.

The finished pack can be used as a ‘highlights’ tour or object hunt for your group visits to the gallery in the future, after which students can add new cards they have prepared themselves or argue for the existing cards to be changed if they do not agree with the scores.