Happy National Manager Day! This year, FableVision is planting the seeds of the future with Make That Paper: Careers in Forestry, our new web game created for Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) Education and the Georgia Forestry Foundation (GFF). Whether it’s harvesting trees, landowning, or managing a mill, forestry workers—especially managers—play a huge role in maintaining sustainable forests and manufacturing the many forest and paper-based products that we use regularly.
In Make That Paper, high school students learn about the forestry industry and develop their career readiness and problem-solving skills. As they step into the role of a forestry manager, students play through a series of simulated workplace management challenges. They must alternate between job interviews, written communication through emails, and on-the-job challenges to successfully, efficiently, and sustainably manage a forest and production of forest products. Students choose from three positions—landowner, harvest manager, or mill manager—and use best practices when interviewing candidates, hiring and managing employees, and responding to workplace problems and crises. In each career path, players receive the responsibilities and requirements to succeed in their role and sort through emails, conversations, and other information to make decisions that benefit their company.
The real-world skills that students receive through gameplay leave a lasting impact on students’ career readiness and view of their future career paths. By highlighting these lesser-known career paths, FableVision hopes to educate young minds and introduce them to the world of forestry and see if they have what it takes to “make that paper!”
So this National Manager Day, as we celebrate the managers across the country who help companies to run smoothly, check out Make That Paper: Careers in Forestry, available to play now on GPB’s website! And be sure to check out our other projects created in collaboration with GPB, such as Gasha Go, a colorful math game for grades K-3, Lights, Camera, Budget!, a financial literacy game for middle and high schoolers, and Georgia Race Through Time, a Georgia history learning game for eighth-graders. All four games are free to play and available online!
