LAMBOOZLED!

Award Winner! Best Empirical Research at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference 2019, in the Media, Culture & Learning Special Interest Group (MCL SIG)

Responding to current issues surrounding news credibility, this award-winning card game will help young people (11+) sharpen their critical media literacy skills while avoiding partisan politics. Grounded in current research on news literacy and learning sciences, this card game for 2–6 players introduces—in a fun and engaging way—valuable strategies that teens can use to spot misinformation. LAMBOOZLED!TM is set in the fictional sheep town of Green Meadows, where some news stories attempt to pull the wool over your eyes. Players must help the sheep citizens of Green Meadows figure out what’s true and what’s not by using their evidence to win over the herd. For more information, including a video tutorial on how to play, visit www.lamboozled.com.

Game Features:

• A unique approach to media literacy that is effective, fun, and nonpartisan.
• Appropriate for diverse learners and subject areas, including language arts, social studies, civics education, and government.
• Designed for use in classrooms, libraries, after-school programs, and homeschool environments.
• Specifically grounded in educational and media literacy research and field tested with youth.
• Designed, developed, and evaluated by an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students at MASCLab in collaboration with subject-matter experts, educators, and librarians.

Ioana Literat, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University, a board member of the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), and the 2020 recipient of AERA’s Early Career Award from the Media, Culture and Learning SIG.

Yoo Kyung Chang, PhD, is a learning experience designer and a lecturer in the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The Media and Social Change Lab (MASCLab) is a hub for multimodal and digital scholarship that explores the relationship between media and social change. MASCLab is housed within the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University (masclab.org).

"LAMBOOZLED! is an effective tool to engage youth in articulating and developing core media literacy skills. As the executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, I spend my days working to advance media literacy practice in the U.S. and beyond. It is refreshing to see that this approach to media literacy education as we know it is an effective way to promote social change and learning."
—Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, executive director, National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)

"It is now more important than ever to help students understand how to distinguish facts from fiction as they navigate the digital world. LAMBOOZLED! is a great, fun way to introduce the subject, and to have students learn the steps needed to spot fake news easily."
—Nori Negron, AP research and English teacher, Rockland County, NY

"I was especially impressed by the game’s ability to spark conversation and thoughtful discussion about serious media literacy issues in a playful way. Sometimes questions of media literacy are fraught with partisan undertones and some young people are hesitant to speak up. LAMBOOZLED!’s humorous universe opens up novel avenues for play and helps students let their guard down in ways that are conducive to building conversation. As a librarian, educator, and scholar of communications, technology, and pedagogy, I am wildly enthusiastic about serious fun and bringing young people into the fold. LAMBOOZLED! does this in spades."
—Mark Dzula, director of Teaching and Learning Resources, teacher of media arts, journalism, Webb Schools, Claremont, CA

"My students found LAMBOOZLED! to be engaging and challenging. It offered them a chance to develop their reasoning skills and practice their oral arguments. Students are able to use their critical thinking skills to win the game."
—Anne Orenstein, 5th-grade teacher, gifted program, Brooklyn, NY

"Using LAMBOOZLED! helped my students interact and debate in new ways. They enjoyed having hands-on materials at the high school level where so much learning has become digital."
—Kate Sutter, social studies teacher, grades 11–12, Lebanon, MO

View a two-minute tutorial video

Download lesson plans for one 45–60 or two 40–60 minute classes.

Dig deeper into the educational benefits that LAMBOOZLED! provides.