World Studies teacher brings history to life with interactive chariot racing

Yahoo

25-02-2025

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Phil Caskey's 9th grade World Studies class at Morgantown High School is currently in the middle of its Rome Studies unit, and is keeping things interesting by allowing students to face off against each other through chariot racing, on a large-scale board game.
The purpose of the race is to teach students about Circus Maximus, a stadium in Ancient Rome that brought out thousands of fans to different chariot racing events. Caskey stated that some of the culture involved in Ancient Rome and Circus Maximus still ties into present-day society because of NASCAR races, which many of his students are a fan of also.
'If you go back to Ancient Rome with some of the gladiator games and the chariot races, it's kind of the first sporting event truly at that large-scale size,' Caskey said. 'If you go to a NASCAR race and you've got 100,000 fans at Talladega, or Daytona was just last week, Circus Maximus was 250-200,000 people that went to Roman chariot races to cheer on their winning team or their best charioteers.'
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Therefore, Caskey stated that his students plan to attempt the same thing in his classroom, by splitting up into different teams. He added that the team to cross the finish line first will move on and advance further in the competition.
Several of Caskey's sophomore students helped him set this project up over the past month, with one student even helping print out 3D chariot pieces. Last week, the students took the time to paint these chariots in a 'cross-curricular learning' opportunity between art and history classes.
According to 9th Grade Student Graham Young, the class was separated into two teams of Green or Blue. He stated that each person was assigned a number and then a number gets picked out of a bag.
Once a particular number gets picked, the person associated with that number on both teams has to roll two six-sided dice, and then move the combined number of spaces on the board. Young added that there are other intricacies, such as cornering checks, 'which is when you're going around a corner and you just kind of like have to stop because you rolled low, and there's also collision checks and there's a bunch of other stuff.'
Young told 12 News that it's a really big deal to him that their class is getting the chance to do chariot racing because he really enjoys playing Dungeons & Dragons with his friends. 'So like these miniature games where you get to paint your mini [figurines] and like interact with other people by just chance, I find it really fun.'
According to Young, board games similar to this one are really interesting to him because you get to play out a character. He added that he's really into Roman history, and he finds games that focus on gladiatorial elements to be 'really cool' because of how intricate they can be.
'This has really helped me understand the unit by like being able to envision what it was like, rather than just reading it in a textbook,' Young added. 'Just a bunch of people came into the stadium and to watch just mass blood shed, just for the fun of it.'
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Young also noted that from his observations, most of his classmates appeared to be getting engaged and involved with the game.
'They've all been pretty on top of things, which is not the case in some cases [because] history just might not interest you that much. But this, I feel like it genuinely, it brings history into a limelight that everyone can see through.'
Caskey stated that gladiator combat and racing chariots is supposed to make world history fun, and he feels that his is an opportunity to do that. He places a lot of emphasis on hands-on learning, stating that he'll feel his students were successful as long as they're able to use their hands to roll dice and understand strategy in order to work as a team for the challenge.
'If we just did book work and we just did straight vocab and just straight PowerPoint learning, they might not remember it as much,' said Caskey. 'So I think if you differentiate the instruction and you make something happen that's not of the norm, they'll buy into it more.'
On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the students will put their chariots against each other for the official race. Following the competition, one of the teams will be named the official champion.
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