In spring 2013, students in Norene Leddy’s freshman Laboratory 02: Get Involved course (Parsons The New School for Design) created sex education-based games that could actually be used in classrooms. Each game can be modified by educators, and they are available for download below.
The games were designed to make sex education fun, accessible, inclusive and accurate — filling a gap in the sex education curriculum of many schools we reviewed. Thanks to our guest critics who provided valuable feedback, including the high school students at Washington Irving Campus; Sarah Cocuzzo, Program Associate at Peer Health Exchange; Caitlin Hanson, Director of School Based Health and Adolescent Medicine at the Institute for Family Health; Jessy Jo Gomez, game designer and Parsons student; Natalia Mehlman-Petrzela, sex ed historian, professor at The New School, and founder of Health Class 2.0; and sex educator Cory Silverberg.
Please send an email to norene [at] sexedproject [dot] org if you use them — we would love to hear your feedback!
1. Sex Phrase
Designers: Carly McDougald, Caroline Smith, Jasmine Ho, Taozhi Liu, Crystal Henry
Game Description:
This engaging and interactive game allows students to play one on one or come together in a team setting. The goal is for one student to get their peers to say a vocabulary word from one of the Sex Phrase categories without using the word itself. This game can go on for ten minutes or even longer depending on how many vocabulary words the teacher would like them to go through. It’s a great way to review and asses sex education vocabulary.
Age Range: 14+
Subjects / Themes / Key Concepts:
Healthy Relationships, STDs, Puberty, Slang, General Sexuality
Click here to download Sex Phrase.
2. Perfect Pair
Designers: Hyungmin Lee, Cynthia Chandra, Renee Park, Gabriella Gulfin
Game Description:
In this board game, each player has had no knowledge about healthy relationships, so they want to learn. The way to win is to climb to the top of the building and conquer each level that you face with a question that will educate you. There are other obstacles such as bombs that will penalize you for getting the questions on their floor wrong, but that only makes you want to learn more. Get to the top and you will find your perfect match and make a perfect pair.
Age Range: 15-18
Subjects/ Themes/ Key Concepts:
Healthy Relationships, STDs (specifically AIDS), Birth Control, LGBTQ awareness
Click here to download Perfect Pair.
3. Sexploration through High School
Designers: William Dunkley, Christopher Feth, Tatiana Ramos, Abigail Tang
Game Description:
In this fun interactive board game, each player is a student that is trying to complete high school successfully. As players move around the board from locker to locker, they must answer reproductive health questions and guess vocabulary words to move forward. To win the game, a player must complete all four years of high school and reach the end first.
Age Range: 14+
Subjects/ Themes/ Key Concepts:
Healthy Relationships, STDs, General Sex Ed, Situation-based Awareness
Click here to download Sexploration through high School.
4. Sex Phrase Icebreakers: Broken Sex Phone and Sexy Singing
Designers: Carly McDougald, Caroline Smith, Jasmine Ho, Taozhi Liu, Crystal Henry
Broken Sex Phone: This game is a modified version of the game Telephone. The goal is to pass a message to each participant by whispering it in another participant’s ear. At the end the message will become distorted, demonstrating the unreliability of word-of-mouth information.
Sexy Singing: This game is a modified version of karaoke designed to bring students’ attention to the sexual messages they are hearing on the radio and television which (potentially) go unnoticed. It is meant to be an introductory game into a larger discussion about sexuality and society, and sexual images that become somewhat subliminal. This also introduces a discussion on common sexual slang.
Click here to download the Sex Phrase Icebreakers.