Fear Factor

Feeling & Expressing
Feeling & Expressing
Friends & Mentors
Friends & Mentors
Involved & Inclusive
Involved & Inclusive
Thinking & Engaging
Thinking & Engaging
Healthy & Active
Healthy & Active
Offline & Connected
Offline & Connected
Art
Art
Music
Music
Theatre
Theatre
Water
Water
Food
Food
Nature
Nature
Numeracy
Numeracy
STEM
STEM
Literacy
Literacy

A wonderful way to encourage you to combine three activities, each focusing of different areas of skill development, into one fun-themed day.

Materials

  • Any materials associated with the chosen activities.
  • Something to tally points with.

Framing

A lot of the 150 Days activities work excellently together and sometimes it may be difficult to choose just one! Many of us have seen, or at least, heard of, the reality show Fear Factor and it is a great way for children and youth to have fun, be competitive, and learn skills at the same time.

Instructions

  1. Choose three activities from the 150 Days of Programming Resource. Typically one physical activity, one nutrition activity, and one academic activity (though you can adjust according to your program’s needs). This example Fear Factor activity will include Gold Rush, The Great Smoothie Challenge, and Balloon Trivia.
  2. Divide your group into three teams and play Gold Rush, then The Great Smoothie Challenge, and finally Balloon Trivia.
  3. The team that wins each activity is award 500 points. The team comes second in each activity is awarded 300 points. And the team that comes in last place in each activity is awarded 100 points.
  4. After the Balloon Trivia is completed, tally up the awarded points for each team. The team with the most points wins. Instead of getting a reward that the others don’t get, be creative. Consider allowing that group choose a meal for all to enjoy (ie. a pizza day or sub day).
  5. If there is a tie for first place, have the losing group choose a Lego Challenge Card, and challenge the tied groups to complete it first.

Modify

  • Because there is lots of room to adapt Fear Factor for your group or program, you could consider eliminating groups and players throughout. Round one would pit the three groups against one another, allowing the two successful groups to move on to round two, at which point, only one group would successfully move on to round three. During round three, switch to a player versus player (PvP) activity where only one winner is determined.
  • Alternatively, with an initially smaller group, each activity could be PvP where a few are eliminated each round.
  • If doing the elimination version, keep the other participants engaged and active by cheering on the teams, helping out with activity facilitation, scorekeeping, or rule-enforcing.

Safety

  • There are no foreseeable safety concerns for this activity.

Wrap-up

Even though there is a winner group at the end, they aren’t really getting anything special over the other participants; everyone ends up benefitting from the win. However, there is a possibility that the non-winning groups may feel a little duped in not getting to choose the next group meal, despite having worked hard. Take the opportunity to allow the non-winning groups to suggest meal options to the winning group and encourage the winning group to listen and seriously consider those suggestions.



Adapted from: