National Bahá’í Schools

Ideas from the Committees—Binding Hearts in Fellowship Activities

Trivia Game on “Bahá’u’lláh’s Journeys” from Eastern Colorado National Bahá’í School

This trivia game was a success! It was great fun and all ages seemed to participate quite well. These are the steps to prepare it:

• Decided on eight key places Bahá’u’lláh stopped on his journey from Tehran to Akka. The eight places we chose to use for stops on His journey were: Tehran, Baghdad, Monsul, Samsun, Sulamaniyyih, Constantinople (Istanbul), Adrianople and Akka.
  
• We used the map (PDF) on all the tables and with the packets to show each team where their city was, but for the game we used a large version of a similar map. (We also sold many of these maps at the school and gave the small profit to the fund. The large map was about 3 feet by 2 feet.)
  
• Compile stories and writings on each place, including a map of His travels and where the particular place is located. Each city/village gets a separate packet of information.
  
• Take the school registration list and create 8 groups of people (with gender and age diversity)
  
• Assign a leader to each group and give him/her the packet of info for their city/village
  
• Set up 8 large tables (such as in the cafeteria) — each table was assigned a city. Each table gets an additional packet for that city (not to be removed) along with a standing map and where the city is located along the route of Baha'u'llah's journey.
  
• At lunch time only, encourage participants to sit with their city/village group. Also encourage them to read the stories and come up with trivia questions about their place (put index cards and pens on the tables at lunch).
  
• On one of the last evenings of the school, play the trivia game. Set up, on a cork or bulletin board, a large map of Bahá’u’lláh’s travels with His journey highlighted. Each city (not just the 8) is a point on the map (a little over 70 points) Have each group sit at their tables and play as a team. Each team has a stick pin with their city/village on it that moves along the journey, along all 70 points on the map.
  
• Ask teams questions from the index cards collected from all the groups. If the team answers it right they move ahead the number on the dice that is rolled.
  
• To make it a little less heavy, make every other question be one from the Parker Brothers Trivial Pursuit game (the geography and history questions only).
  
• The first team to make it to Akka wins!

E-mail Charlotte Rickert at charlotte.rickert@configuresoft.com to find out more about this team-building activity!

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