What would you do if you were forced to participate in a series of survival challenges? If you were forced to kill or be killed? HHS freshmen have been faced with these predicaments. They’re currently in the middle of the school’s 2nd annual Hunger Games – trying to outcompete each other to survive. It’s not an actual survival survival challenge, but close enough.

The Hunger Games is a novel series by Suzanne Collins that follows the story of Katniss Everdeen, who was chosen to participate in a survival game. The classes are currently reading the first book in the series. Some CA teachers have decided to create their own Hunger Games challenges for their freshmen classes. 

Just like in the books, there are 12 districts (per class). Each district has two members, or tributes, and students are placed into districts at random at the very beginning of the games.

Students can “die” if challenged by one of their peers. The different challenges include endurance, racing, a quiz, rock paper scissors. In the endurance challenge, students must hold two books out to their sides for as long as they can. First to put their arms down dies. In the race, students must race across the halls to a certain point, the winner lives. In the quiz, the first to get three questions correct survives. In rock paper scissors, the first to get however many wins survives. 

Usually, a teacher will issue only one type of challenge: starvation. During a starvation challenge, a student is chosen to “starve.” The starved student must challenge a classmate in the hopes to survive. The classmate then chooses a challenge and they compete.

Challenges are given at random and any competitor could “die” on any given day. However, some teachers have been given things that can assist students in their challenges, such as medicine and poison berries. Poison berries can be given to a student to poison and instantly kill one of their rivals. Medicine can be given to a student to “revive” them if they’ve died already. Student sponsors can also give boosts/advantages out once every four days.

But what do the freshmen really think of it? Do they actually like the games, despite being forced to participate? Yes, according to the few we asked.

“The games are very fun,” Isaiah Washington, a freshman competing in the Hunger Games, said. “I’m in District 11 and I’ve not died yet. My favorite challenge is the race because I think that I’m the best at running in my class – and think I could beat anybody in a race.” 

Washington also said that the games could be improved for a more realistic experience by adding foam sword fighting for hand-to-hand combat.

“I’m in District 3 and on a typical day, we do a quick write,” Nina-Annette Ndonwi, another freshman competing in the games, said. “Then anyone who wants to challenge does that, then we read the book. My favorite challenge is the quiz off and starvation challenge because I can just choose to quiz on all the Hunger Games books when no one else was paying attention.”

Ndowni said that she read the whole Hunger Games series in preparation for the freshmen games. She said the books helped her get “really excited” for the games. 

Mrs. Barfield said that the dates on the posters were about the Cornucopia – it was the first day of fighting. The Gamemaker’s Fest is a major event still coming up. It’s the final battle between the winners of each hour and will take place during the pep assembly in front of the entire school. There will be five rounds of gameplay that will eliminate one contestant at a time and the winner will be rewarded with a Mockingjay pin, a set of the Hunger Games trilogy, and a feast for their class on the day of finals.