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FishBanks

Introduction

This game itself was developed by Dennis Meadows, of the Laboratory for Interactive Learning at the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research, at Hood House - UNH, Durham, NH 03824 (see http://www.unh.edu/ipssr/FishBank.html). I felt that this was a wonderful game that could allow students to experience the "tragedy of the commons", and the way human nature leads us to look at the short term, and in so doing, can destroy resources critical for long term survival. The software that came with the game left a great deal to be desired, so I recreated it, with improvements that I feel make it easier to run the game. The Fishbanks materials from IPSSR are well worth the $100, so I advise that you augment this material with the official version. Please advise me of any problems you have with this software.

Download the game and read about the new online multi-user version <link>

Figure 1: It's pretty obvious how to use this. The "Rules of Game" button takes you to a slide show that is useful to project for students when introducing the game. You can also change the slide show. I'll explain how to do that later.