SPACE QUEST | Needs vs Wants Cooperative Game

Are you looking for a fun way to help your personal finance students determine the difference between needs and wants? Space Quest provides a fun cooperative challenge, to help students from elementary to high school, figure out the difference between needs and wants.

In this group activity, teams will be introduced to the scenario by a video informing them that they have been selected to join Space Quest, a team being tasked with determining if a newly discovered planet could sustain humanity. There isn't much time. They must decide from a list of 72 different items, which 16 are making it onto the ship. As the activity progresses, they are challenged to reduce the number of items they are taking, and this forces teams to debate and advocate for items that they deem are needs for survival.

This resource contains:

• 72 printable item cards
• 2 videos for introducing the activity and creating the story
• Printable organization sheet for student groups with a space ship and 16 available spots for items
• Crew code of conduct sheet which outlines how to have productive negotiation and resolve conflict. Perfect for new classes with groups of students who have not worked together before.
• Student reflection Google Document (also in PDF) for you to assign or use to guide whole class discussions.

Suitable for all levels of elementary up to high school. It can be used as part of a financial literacy curriculum or a standalone group-building activity. The level of conversation and discussion will be the difference between the different age groups. Everyone can start to think about the concept of needs and wants!

Follow this up with:

• Is it a Need or a Want? sorting activity where students are challenged to categorize everyday spending products and services as Needs or Wants. Another awesome cooperative activity and conversation starter. I love following up Space Quest with this one.
• The Budget Matrix is the next step in the conversation about needs and wants where we realize it's not a simple dichotomy. Students are challenged to sort everyday budget costs by importance and urgency. This can help shed light on the basic budget decisions that students will need to make in the future.
• Budgeting For Food - Meal Plan Project where students create a meal plan for 1 week and research the ingredient costs and cost per serving of their meals.
• Personal Finance Lessons Through Monopoly since who doesn't like rounding off the unit with some games? Cashflow tracking with Monopoly is a great way to introduce the topic and then tie it into the conversation about needs and wants.