Ballotopia is an animal-themed political card game to introduce high school students to politics and debate in a friendly and undaunting way. It is meant to be a teaching aid, but can be played outside of school as a fun standalone game. The game comes with instruction manual and cards, and 2 ballot boxes all contained its own product box. Players take the role of politicians and citizens, they pick and continue to 3 different stages of the game with the moderator leading the session: discussion and debate, Q&A, and voting. Citizens talk among each other about issues, then politicians make speeches about said issues. Citizens then ask questions to politicians that can help them vote on who they'd like. In the end, whichever politician gets the most votes win!

Education is often the solution that experts rule as the best solution to increasing turnout rates for youth. My research has also indicated that role-play, inclusion, the ability to speak freely, and conflict normalization is important. Successful educational games use design concepts such as goals, social play, challenge, and imagination to help teach students. My interview also indicated that students are more interested in topics that they are involved in can relate to, and can carry on for more than an hour if they are in fact interested. Rules and card designs went through multiple rounds of testing with classmates and our thesis professor.

Research Questions:

1. At what age should we start teaching politics?
2. What elements of teaching keeps students engaged?
3. How effective is learning as a group vs individually?