Mr. Buggy is known throughout the high school for running simulations in all of his classes, no matter the curriculum. Most recently, his two honors world cultures classes ran a simulation depicting the Napoleon wars from the early 1800’s. The simulation lasted about six days and included buying infantry, national propaganda, and forming alliances with other countries. While these simulations do take a while, Mr. Buggy enjoys running them. “Despite the amount of time it takes to set them up, I do enjoy running them and watching the students implement their own ideas and logics into the simulations,” he stated.
Before the simulation even began, the groups decided who their leaders would be and then they blindly chose their country through a random draw. After the leader received their crowns, each group got a “cheat sheet” to help them know their objectives to win the game. The king of Spain was Kaylum Riegel, a student in Mr. Buggy’s 4th period class. He had a group of seven alongside him that also represented Spain. Later, Kaylum and Napoleon himself decided to form an alliance between themselves. This alliance lasted throughout the whole game, eventually helping Spain complete their objectives. Someone on Spain’s team, Sheila Kern, really enjoyed the simulation. “I personally found it really fun, especially because I was a rogue and got to do a lot of the behind the scenes work,” said Sheila. There was a point in the simulation when each team’s rogues got to shoot a target and if they hit the target, they got to choose some sort of advantage.
Overall, everyone really enjoyed the simulation. It taught students new ways to communicate and gave them an inside look of what it was like for the world leaders back then. For some like Napoleon, it was all about power but for others like Prussia, it was about keeping the citizens safe. Mr. Buggy says that he plans on doing these simulations, even including doing more to engage the students.
