The year is 1852. You are a slave working on a Maryland tobacco plantation. You belong to a stern farmer whose field you tend six long days a week. But not for much longer…
What will you do? Make your choices well as you embark on your journey to freedom.
We’ve updated the most popular interactive on our website. Your task is to start on a historic journey, escaping enslavement and heading north towards freedom. What decisions will you make on this dangerous road?
The Underground Railroad: Journey to Freedom is a “choose your own journey” style online game. Some of its features include:
- 3-D experiences
- Interactive action
- Frist person perspective
- Primary source documents
- Famous historical figures, such as Harriet Tubman and William Still
- Several possible outcomes based on decisions the player makes during the game
Educators can check out our comprehensive educator guide.
The guide offers suggestions on how to engage students in Grades 6-10 with the interactive in a variety of settings both in and out of the classroom. For example, encourage students to explore other slave narratives from the American Memory Project. Or, host mini-sessions on decision-making strategies, and have students think critically about their decisions during game-play.
The educator guide is a great resource for families as well. Parents or caregivers can act as facilitators, using the guide’s background information section as a reference. Families can play the game and then reflect together with discussion questions, journal prompts, and opportunities for further research.
This is currently a public beta version of the game, meaning we’re still making changes based on your feedback. Once you get a feel for the game, click here to fill out our feedback form. Be sure to check back often, as we’ll be adding new features throughout 2014.
Now, summon up your courage and take your chances. Tonight, we journey north.
I want to access this game how do I get it?
The “Journey to Freedom” game is no longer available. We encourage you to visit education.nationalgeographic.org for our full suite of current games and other resources.
why is this game removed?
@Olivia: We constantly review and update our Resource Library. We unpublished this older game to make way for newer materials
hello…how can we access this interactive online? I have the APP on my ipad, but I would like my students to access it on their computers
Where can I find this interactive. I used it for several years and then it disappeared!
hello…were you able to locate it? i would like to use it as well