Classroom · Economics
£155,000 of good ideas and £100,000 to spend.
Students rank four neighbourhood schemes, each with its price in view. Their rankings combine into one order, the fund pays for each scheme in full down that order until it reaches one it cannot afford, and the projector shows what was funded and what was left.
- Up to 27 people
- About 10 min
A practice run with fictional students. No real classroom or join code is created.
Try an answer on the phone. Lead the lesson from the screen.
On their phone
You are presenting
Setting up the room…
Lesson deck
Teach it as a ready-made lesson
Hook, how it works, the live game and takeaways. Edit anything.
How would you spend it?
A ready-to-teach lesson deck: a hook, how it works, the live game and takeaways for the debrief.
6 slides · 1 activity
What it teaches
Spending a fixed fund down a ranked list is not the same operation as getting the most out of it: an expensive favourite near the top can leave money unspent and fewer schemes standing. Students separate preference aggregation, how a room's rankings become one order, from the budget constraint that decides what that order buys.
- Budget constraints
- Preference aggregation
Debrief, while the boards are still up
- 01
What was left in the fund, and which scheme did the money stop at?
- 02
Could another order have funded more schemes? Would that have been better?
- 03
The fund stopped at the first scheme it could not afford. Should it have skipped that one and kept going?
- 04
Whose first choice went unfunded, and was that fair?
- 05
Would you rather rank, give each resident a share, or vote yes or no on each scheme?
How it works
- 01
Add it to your library
Sign up free and pull the activity from Decka's built-in classroom catalog — one click copies it into your own library, ready to run from Decka or inside PowerPoint.
- 02
Students join by QR
Everyone scans from the projector and plays in their phone's browser. No app, no account, nothing to install.
- 03
You run the room
You move the activity phase by phase: collection closes, the boards resolve on the big screen, and the debrief happens while the results are still up.
A participatory budgeting game with a real budget constraint
By default there is £100,000 in the fund and £155,000 of schemes: a protected cycle lane at £45,000, Saturday opening at the library at £30,000, a rebuilt playground at £60,000 and street trees at £20,000. Every price is on the ballot while students rank.
Everyone's rankings are added into one order, and the fund pays down it, each scheme in full, until it reaches a scheme it cannot afford. There the walk stops: that scheme is passed over and nothing below it is reached, even a scheme cheap enough to fit. With these prices the most the fund can buy is three schemes, the cycle lane, the library and the trees, with £5,000 to spare, and only when the playground is ranked last. Rank the playground first and the cycle lane second, and it buys the playground alone.
Once the ballot closes, the projector shows each scheme's outcome and what was left in the fund. Nobody is told how any one person ranked.
FAQ
Participatory budgeting questions, answered
How are rankings combined?
Each scheme's positions across all ballots are summed, and the lowest total goes first; a tie falls to a fixed order.
What if the next scheme costs more than what is left?
By default the fund stops there: that scheme is passed over and the schemes below it are not reached, even one that would still fit. Nothing is part-funded. Whether the fund stops or skips that scheme and keeps going is a lesson setting.
Can students change their ranking?
Yes, until the ballot closes. Whether they can is a setting too.
Is this how real participatory budgeting works?
It models the vote. Real participatory budgeting, where residents decide how part of a public budget is spent, also gathers proposals, costs them and deliberates before anyone votes.
How long does it take?
One ballot; the saved default shows under the headline as "About N min", and every timer is a setting you control before you run it.
Do students need an app or an account?
No. Students scan a QR code from the projector (or open a link) and play in their phone's browser. Nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.
Does it work in PowerPoint or Google Slides?
In PowerPoint, yes: open the Decka add-in on a slide and choose the Classroom tile. Google Slides is not supported yet; there you present from Decka itself. Students play from their phones either way.
How many students can play at once?
Up to 27 participants on every plan, because this lesson seats no more than 27. A larger class cannot all take part.
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