On April 15, a new hands-on science museum, the Kiewit Luminarium, opened its doors in Omaha, Nebraska. Included among its displays is The Survival Game, which Human Generosity Project co-directors Athena Aktipis and Lee Cronk helped design for The Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco. The game is designed to teach museum visitors about the Maasai Osotua system of risk pooling through transfers to those in need. In the game, two to four players sit at a table where they are shown how many virtual livestock they have. As the rounds go by, herds grow but can also be hit by shocks representing events that can kill livestock such as droughts and diseases. Players can then ask each other for gifts of livestock and respond to such requests, or not, by pressing buttons on the game table.
For more about the Survival Game, please read “Exhibitizing Cooperation,” a blog post on this site written by Hugh McDonald, formerly of The Exploratorium. For more about the Kiewit Luminarium, please visit their site: https://kiewitluminarium.org/
