#1087: Playing With Probability: How Brownie Scouts Earned Their Gaming Badge Through Board Game Design

This practice-oriented paper presents a design workshop developed in partnership with a Brownie Scouts troop in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two-part workshop engaged seven- to nine-year-old girls (N=9) in earning their Game Design Badge through board game design using simple, low-cost materials. Learnings from the workshop included children’s partial but functional understanding of probability, improved design confidence after analyzing other games, sense of pride and ownership about self-designed games, peer-to-peer learning opportunities through playtesting, and remixing basic game templates based on personal interests. The project demonstrates how complex topics can be made approachable through characters and storylines. The workshop flow, moving from guided play to independent design, can be adapted in classrooms, libraries, or after-school programs to make complex mathematical concepts more approachable through play and creativity.