How Clue and The 4C’s Inspire Connection, Community and Creativity

ElizaBeth Phillips

7 years ago

How DO board games inspire Connection, Community, and Creativity, you ask?

Last week, eight middle school girls were consumed with the details related to who murdered Mr. Boddy. This wasn’t the latest episode of a crime drama, and thankfully wasn’t something in the news, but instead was the culminating event wrapping up their Secret Agent badge-an intense game of Clue.

I’m lucky enough to be the troop leader for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, an out-of-school time activity that she and most of the girls in our troop have been doing since Kindergarten. Over the years we have completed some pretty fun badges-woodworking, first aid, camping, and the science of happiness to name a few-but the Secret Agent badge may be the current leader for all-time best badge.

Not only did the girls have a great time learning about fingerprint identification, chromatography, and body language while practicing their observation skills, I was impressed with the amount of science and social skills they were picking up. But it was much more than STEM in action or seeing the fruits of the large initiatives to get girls involved in STEM, the Secret Agent badge gave our troop a chance to practice real-world skills.

Our “4C’s” were in overdrive as the girls used communication to express their findings with each other, critical thinking skills to deduce clues, collaboration as they worked in teams, and creativity in developing memory techniques. They practiced their active listening skills by not just listening to words and waiting to respond, but also noticing how the person spoke and what their body language was saying.

In the end, Team Cats determined that Professor Plum committed the act in the library with the lead pipe. Now, the whole troop can’t wait until they are all 14-years-old and able to try our their newly-earned Secret Agent skills at an escape room.