Reddit mentions of Gaming the System: Designing with Gamestar Mechanic (The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning)

I think it's definitely developmentally appropriate if you approach it the right way. Here's a link to Kylie's "Gaming the System" book that is targeted at middle schoolers.


In my (undergrad) courses and presentations the point I make is this: systems thinking is to the 21st century as literacy was to the 20th. You could get by in the early 20th without knowing how to read or write, but eventually if you were illiterate it sidelined you completely. We're facing the same thing now with systems thinking, and we have to be teaching this in the lower grades.

For your purposes, some goals could be having students be able to diagram dynamic relationships (predator-prey, accelerating erosion, etc.) using the language of sources, stocks, and drains to the point that they can see how many relationships result in non-linear effects -- how many small inputs can create a disproportionately large output. This is like the analytic part of playing with a sand/stream table: they have to be able to recognize and describe the processes at work, not just observe them (and ideally, they should be able to transfer that knowledge from one domain to another). If you can get them (and you! :) ) to the point of being able to recognize and describe emergent effects too, that's a huge win.

And man, congrats on living close to (or being able to travel to) the Olympic peninsula. that's one of the most beautiful (if, okay, not always sunny) places on Earth.

Edited to add: if it helps, here's a video of me giving a presentation about systemic design and game design at a conference in Sweden. Probably above where you want to be with your students (and just hitting the wave tops of what I do in my course), but maybe some useful concepts for you.