Blood Journey: Designing an Educational Board Game for Learning the Human Circulatory System
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This design project addresses the challenges faced by eighth-grade students in understanding and retaining information about the human circulatory system in Biology lessons at John Paul’s School, Bekasi. The topic involves numerous scientific terms, complex relationships among organs and blood vessels, and considerable demands on student ability to visualize the circulatory process. However, the learning media used in the classroom are primarily textbooks and slide presentations. This project aimed to design an educational board game that integrates biological content with visual communication, interactivity, and play. The design process adopted the Design Thinking approach, comprising five stages: empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews with a biology teacher and students, and a review of relevant literature. The resulting product, Blood Journey: Explore the Human Circulatory System, consists of a game board, educational cards, mineral character pawns, organ tokens, dice, red point tokens, a point container, an instruction booklet, and packaging. The prototype was tested with four eighth-grade students, whose gameplay activities were observed. During gameplay, some students were able to identify the functions of organs and the names of blood vessels, although they occasionally forgot some of the information. These observations provided preliminary insights into student interactions with the game and its biological content. The project demonstrates how Visual Communication Design principles, including illustration, colour coding, typography, and layout, can be integrated into an educational board game to present complex biological concepts through an interactive visual medium. However, further evaluation involving more participants and systematic assessment methods is needed to determine the game’s contribution to students understanding of the human circulatory system.
DOI: 10.59997/x12fyb63
Authors: benny Muhdaliha, Yushinta Kristiyanti
Institution: Universitas Budi Luhur
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7224787630