The teacher’s guide to classroom mode
How to bring 1in8B, our free life simulation built on public statistics, into a lesson — what classroom mode holds back, what it never collects, and a forty-minute plan you can run tomorrow.
Before the lesson
Live one life yourself first — it is the fastest way to know which moments your class will want to talk about. Then open the classroom link above and find the classroom panel on the first screen.
Type a class code of your choosing (letters, numbers and hyphens), pick one of the three labs, and run it. The code fixes the lab: the same code, the same settings and the same model version give the same lives, so the whole class compares the same table.
Print the results table or export it as CSV from the panel, and keep the classroom link in a bookmark — classroom mode lives in the address, so each lesson starts by opening it again.
A forty-minute lesson
One run of the whole plan fits a class period. The panel’s discussion question works at any step.
| Opening · 5 min | Open the classroom link on the board. Read the panel’s policy line and discussion question together: if you could not choose where you were born, what would decide your life? |
|---|---|
| Same code, five lives · 10 min | Run the five-lives lab under one class code. It draws one life from each of five different countries, weighted by births, all born in the same year — open each row’s details and compare where the paths split. |
| One country, many years · 10 min | Switch to the years lab for one country: children born in 1950, 1975, 2000, 2025 and 2050. Ask the class which differences the birth year explains — and which it does not. |
| The world in numbers · 10 min | Run the world lab with 300 births. Compare the mean and median with the real country figures on the site, then export the CSV or print the table for the board. |
| Closing · 5 min | Return to the discussion question. Each pupil writes one line they would say to one of the lives they met today. |
How the class code works
A class code is a label that also acts as a seed for the labs: the same code with the same settings reproduces the same lives and the same table, as long as the model version is the one shown in the panel. Change the code and you get a different but equally fair batch.
The code does not change the life a pupil plays on the main screen — that life always draws its own birth from the same statistics as everyone else.
After the lab: printing and CSV
The panel’s print button lays the results table out for paper, and the CSV export opens the same numbers in any spreadsheet. A finished life played on the main screen can be saved as a record picture from the game’s own record view.
Subject-by-subject ideas
- Social studies
- Run the five-lives lab and put its five birth countries on the board — five countries drawn by birth weight, one life each. Which places appeared, which never do, and why where you are born is not a choice.
- Maths and statistics
- One life is an anecdote; three hundred are a sample. Compare the lab’s mean lifespan with the country’s real life expectancy, and discuss why single runs wander far from the average.
- Ethics
- Open the detail of one life from a country very different from your own and retell one of its years in that person’s voice. Then make two lists on the board: what the birth decided, and what the person decided.
- History
- The years lab puts 1950 next to 2025. Ask the class which differences come from people and which come from medicine, machines and public health.
What is 1in8B?
1in8B is a life simulation played in the browser: a birth is drawn for you from the babies being born around the world right now, with no say in where, and you guide that one person from birth to the end of life. The country, the family and the starting conditions come from real birth statistics across 172 countries and territories, and the life that follows moves with each country’s indicators.
Everything runs on this page, with no account and nothing to install. Country figures come from UN World Population Prospects 2024 and World Bank World Development Indicators; we say openly where the data ends — not every indicator carries a checked reference year, and events beyond the statistics follow game rules, not predictions.
Classroom mode, compared
Open the game with the classroom link below and the page runs in classroom mode: the gentle-content rules are enforced for the whole session and cannot be switched off from the page.
Held back in classroom mode:
- suicide and self-harm
- sexual violence
- drug dependence
- graphic violence
- intimate-partner violence
- alcohol
- gambling
- crime
- tobacco
Left as the statistics say:
- poverty and illness
- wars and disasters in the countries where they occur
- divorce, remarriage and losing family members
- lives that end early
Sharing to the community, reading other players’ words, social sharing and the memorial are off. Classroom mode also sends no analytics and shows no ads.
Pupil information and privacy
Nothing that identifies a pupil is collected. Classroom mode sends no analytics at all — the page skips its measurement entirely — and there are no accounts, so there is nothing to sign and nothing to hand over.
A life in progress, the content preference and recent finished lives are kept in the browser’s local storage on the device in front of the pupil. They stay there after the browser closes, and clearing the site’s data in that browser removes them. Nothing from that storage is sent anywhere.
Common teacher questions
How long does a life take?
Duration depends on the pace you choose, time spent reading and the choices you make. The time shown in the start-screen settings is an estimate; pauses and classroom discussion can make a session longer. An unfinished life stays in this browser so you can continue later.
Which devices work?
Anything with a current browser: laptops, Chromebooks, tablets and phones. Nothing is installed and there is no sign-up; if a school network blocks the site, ask for in8b.com to be allowed.
Does classroom mode stay on?
Classroom mode lives in the address. Open the classroom link each lesson — keeping it as a bookmark is the easiest way — and the exit link inside the classroom panel returns the page to the usual screen.
What if a life ends early?
Some lives do, because the statistics are real. The record shows how the life ended and the years it contained; in the lab, early endings appear in the table like any other outcome, which is itself worth discussing.
Can pupils share the lives they lived?
No. In classroom mode the community, other players’ words and memorials are unreachable, and the share controls on a finished life are switched off. The printed table and the CSV export are the class’s shared record.
Does it cost anything?
No. The game is free from start to finish, with no account. Classroom mode shows no ads; outside classroom mode the site carries advertising to pay for itself, and its privacy policy describes what that involves.
Contact
Corrections, bug reports and wishes from your classroom are welcome at [email protected]. When you write, please keep pupils out of the message — no names, schools or photos.