On Serious Games Sharing Serious Games quality projects
A few months ago, visiting a WWII Museum in Hamburg, I came across a Nazi Serious Game. I thought I had found a super-early form of Serious Game and felt like a gold miner but a few days ago, History slapped me again.
King George´s Kew Palace – Photo by @belengomezsanz
This time I was visiting London’s Kew Gardens. One of the main attractions there is the Kew Palace, home of George III family. Wandering around the rooms of the palace I found what seemed to be a kid’s toy. On reading the description of the item, I found it was a puzzle of Italy and had been used by the governess Lady Charlotte Finch as an early form of educating King George and Queen Charlotte‘s 15 children.
On further reading about this Lady Charlotte Finch, is easy to see that her unusual interest and dedication to Education fits in an early kind of innovative pedagogy.
The most interesting thing is not only the puzzle itself -with pieces forming the different part of Italy including its islands-, but the explanation the Museum has added beside it.
Learn about Italy with a Jigsaw!
‘TITLE: Jigsaw Cabinet. c1765 – This cabinet belonged to Lady Charlotte Finch, the governess to George III and Queen Charlotte’s children. The Princes and Princesses were taught using the latest educational techniques. By the late eighteenth century it was thought that children learned best through play and these puzzle maps were used by all the royal children to help them with their geography’
So, as I always ask myself (and everyone who happens to be around)… Why Georgians had it so clear but we, 21st century people, still hesitate about Serious Games?
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Italian Map Jigsaw – Photo by @belengomezsanz
from where you got this info?
Hi!
As explained in the article, I discovered this puzzle in the Kew Gardens Palace Museum. The explanation of the piece in the museum explained part of it. Besides this, you can find more about the lives of George III and his family through books like “The Strangest Family: The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte, and the Hanoverians” by Janice Hadlow or “Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III”by Flora Fraser.