Teaching guide · created by Yoav Duman
Greenovia:
The Belonging Test
Edition 2026-10-11.1 · save format 2. This guide matches the website player and the updated standalone HTML. Version 2 saved charters keep their rules, drafts, votes and history. Version 1 writing remains available, while the earlier delegate model requires fresh ballots.
The teaching purpose
Students write a charter and follow its cumulative consequences for legal membership, practical access and public recognition. Rules can include someone at one institution and exclude or burden them at another. A policy preference is contestable; the authored facts and the application of an adopted rule can still be wrong.
Use it after a brief introduction to states, nations, citizenship and nationalism. The Field guide provides definitions, a guided example, optional hints, and the model’s limits. No timer forces students forward. An instructor reviews the reasoning; a completed record is not proof of mastery.
Assigning and pacing
Plan 85–110 minutes of individual take-home work, plus discussion. This is an estimate requiring a classroom pilot. Keep the full sequence when assigning the complete activity. It is a solo adaptation with simulated delegates; the earlier two-class, live group activity has a different delivery format.
- Founding: meet the country, choose a regional seat, write a promise and flag, then complete official language and provisional citizenship. First natural pause.
- Using the charter: schools and diaspora support, followed by the religious exam clash. Second natural pause.
- Membership and voice: entry, the final citizenship review, voting, and the victory podium. Third natural pause.
- Explaining the pattern: apply unfamiliar family facts, compare alternate charters, defend a future proposal, challenge the fixed community list, and inspect the report.
Students may stop during any draft. Ask them to wait for the saved status and download a JSON backup at each session boundary. Do not label a subset of cases as completion of the full assignment.
What makes choices consequential
| File | Decision or boundary | What students should explain |
|---|---|---|
| Official languages | One national official language or three equal official languages. | Official status creates obligations; making a service usable requires delivery. |
| Citizenship | A five-year residence route or immediate citizen descent with a ten-year route for others. | Existing citizens retain citizenship. Different family facts produce different routes. |
| Schools + diaspora | Common instruction, bilingual instruction, or regional control. | A language subject is different from core instruction; donors and smaller local communities raise separate questions. |
| Exam clash | Keep one sitting, offer an equivalent alternate, or move the common date and consult. | Freedom of worship can coexist with a practical graduation barrier. |
| Who may enter? | Open settlement, limited job/family routes, or a limited historic-community descent route. | Eligibility within a limit is different from a guaranteed place or citizenship. |
| Citizenship review | Keep or change the provisional naturalization clause. | Citizen descent and historic-community ancestry are different conditions. Applications are processed after this review. |
| Voting | Citizens abroad, qualifying residents, both, or the inherited resident-citizen default. | Citizenship, franchise and readable ballots are separate boundaries. |
| Victory podium | A common flag, historic regional flags, or wider peaceful attachments. | Ceremony recognition does not establish citizenship loss or personal disloyalty. |
Two of the three seats pass a law. Seeded delegate interests are stable across files and reloads. An initial split permits one final offer; a second split carries the disclosed inherited default forward. Three compatible extra delivery projects can support bargains. Each reserves attention, without guaranteeing implementation or erasing the law’s burdens. A region contains disagreement and minorities; one simulated voice does not represent everyone there.
Worked comparisons · instructor spoilers
1. Membership can change while a vote stays available
Hold Neri’s seven lawful years and Voting B fixed. Under C2, Neri has not reached the ten-year citizenship threshold but can vote through the qualifying resident route. In an alternate charter with C1, the same seven-year resident qualifies for citizenship before the election and can still vote. The franchise result stays the same while the membership mechanism changes.
Strong explanation: “Voting B opens the franchise through residence. C2 still delays Neri’s naturalization. Moving to C1 changes legal membership without changing this vote. That says nothing by itself about Neri’s felt national identity.”
Weak explanation: “B is inclusive, so everyone belongs equally.” It does not name the criterion, distinguish status from voice, or acknowledge who remains outside it. The selected policy alone earns neither example a grade.
2. Recognition and implementation differ
Hold Sena’s resident citizenship and difficulty reading Plains fixed. Sena may vote under every offered franchise rule. L1 leaves a Plains-language barrier unless suitable access support is provided. L2 requires a Highland ballot in this model; the council must still provide it. A change in official status creates an obligation rather than evidence that usable ballots already exist.
In the rule lab, alternate rules apply to the same authored earlier facts. They do not amend saved laws or revoke already granted citizenship. A future proposal is shown separately and leaves the earlier cases on record.
The unfamiliar family
Lale’s historic Highland grandmother was never a citizen. Under Entry C, Lale is eligible to seek a limited place, with availability unknown. Under C2, Lale lacks a citizen grandparent and would use the ten-year route after lawful admission. Accurate application must keep those two ancestry criteria separate.
Submission and recovery
Assign the PDF report or readable report HTML. Students finalize the debrief, open Report, inspect completion and their name, then download the PDF and check every answer is readable. They submit it themselves to Canvas or your chosen course system. Greenovia does not upload work. Draft exports remain visibly unfinished.
Save progress downloads a JSON checkpoint for resuming. Browser saving belongs to a browser, device and website address. A backup transfers between yoavduman.com, another website address and a local HTML copy. A PDF or report HTML does not restore a game. When browser saving is unavailable, the activity reports that work is held in the open page and provides download and copy/paste recovery.
Restoring first validates the whole backup, previews its identity and progress, and asks the student to confirm. The pre-restore session stays recoverable inside the new JSON history. Another tab changing the stored version pauses browser saving; students choose which copy to keep. Ask students to keep one active copy after that choice. Unicode text unsupported by the direct PDF font opens a Print / Save PDF alternative that preserves the full writing.
Assess reasoning separately
- Application: the adopted rule and stated person’s facts support the claimed consequence.
- Mechanism: the explanation connects a condition to membership, access or recognition, rather than naming a concept alone.
- Judgment: a policy defense explains a benefit, burden and reasonable objection; different defensible positions can receive equal credit.
- Limits: the student identifies an implementation uncertainty, missing evidence or assumption.
- Synthesis: two adopted decisions and named people reveal a pattern or tension. The River community critique shows how recognized categories can be contested.
Writing minimums and self-review checkboxes establish procedural completion. They cannot assess original reasoning. First submitted applications are retained; current writing can be polished without altering enacted laws. An explicit policy replay archives prior outcomes and requires dependent files to be settled again. Do not count a corrected answer as an independently measured learning gain.
Debrief
- Follow one person across two institutions. Where did legal membership, usable rights and public recognition diverge?
- Which earlier decision constrained a later result? Who benefited from a deadlock leaving a default in place?
- Which delivery project reserved attention? What evidence would show its implementation succeeded?
- Where did regional protection leave a smaller community at the margins?
- Who could secure recognition for the cross-region River community, and what authority or evidence is absent from the model?
Scope and verification
Greenovia, its people and policies are fictional. Equal regional seats, six seeded political profiles and a three-project limit are teaching simplifications, without empirical population weights or a forecast of real public opinion. No policy automatically creates loyalty, consent, prosperity or an identity change. The historic three are a recognized list that students are invited to question.
The repair preserves the prior rules and save format, while improving delivery, continuation and exports. Software checks exercise complete student routes, drafts at interruptions, older backups, invalid imports, conflicting tabs and report generation. PDF pages are inspected for readable text and page boundaries. These are automated and perspective-based reviews; device-level browser testing, screen-reader testing and actual student/instructor piloting still need to be completed.
Created by Yoav Duman · Edition 2026-10-11.1 · Compatible player: index.html in this folder. Conceptual references and the full model disclosure are available in the activity’s Field guide.