1 in 8 Billion Classroom Mode: Teacher Guide & 40-Minute Lesson

1 in 8 Billion is a browser life simulation in which a pupil is born into one of 172 countries and lives one life to its end. The classroom mode is the same simulation with a different frame: heavier material held back, posting and payments off, and a teacher’s lab with a lesson guide, a class code and a printable worksheet.

It is free, needs no account and installs nothing. The developer’s own teacher guide is at 1in8b.life/en/edu/. This page is an independent summary for teachers who want the setup and the lesson plan without reading the whole game site first.

What classroom mode changes

Left out

The developer says classroom mode removes:

• suicide,
• violence and physical punishment at home,
• choosing to drink, smoke, gamble, commit a crime or have an affair,
• the lottery,
• drug dependence,
• sexual violence,
• assisted dying in the family,
• the past and future worlds.

Kept

The developer deliberately keeps:

• poverty, illness, war and fleeing,
• early death,
• divorce and remarriage,
• losing family,
• early marriage and giving birth young,
• families with more than one wife,
• a spouse’s affair,
• deaths from violence or drugs,
• HIV.

These appear at the country’s real rates. The developer’s point is that meeting the world as it is is the purpose of the simulation. No cruel scene is shown.

The world’s many kinds of lives also appear at their real shares: different faiths and cultures, multicultural families, disabled lives, people who love someone of the same sex, and transgender and non-binary lives. The developer says every life is told with respect.

Pupils’ information

The developer says:

• No identifying pupil data is collected in classroom mode.
• Names, contact details and pupils’ written notes do not reach the server.
• What is written in the pauses and parting words stays on the device.
• Only anonymous statistics are sent.
• If the browser has Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control on, even those are not sent.
• The fact that classroom mode is on is saved in that browser only.

The developer’s privacy policy has a section on children and teenagers. If your school has a data-protection policy, read that section before the lesson.

Getting ready

1. Live a life or two yourself. The developer recommends it, and it is good advice: you will know where the decisions appear and how long they take.
2. Open classroom mode on your device. Use the “Open in classroom mode” link on the game site. When Classroom appears beside the version at the top, it is on.
3. Open the classroom lab. On the first screen, open the lab and go to the Lesson guide tab. The pupil address, a copy button and a QR code are there.
4. Give pupils the address. Put it on the board or the class page. Do not give them the teacher’s lab address.
5. Optional: make a class code. In the same tab, generate a four-digit code if you want every pupil to be born as the same baby.

The pupil screen follows the same classroom rules and has the class-code box, but it does not show the lab or the teacher’s guide. There are no accounts, so the screens are separated, not locked.

The 40-minute lesson

The developer’s lesson plan is built around one idea: the same start, different lives.

Opening — 5 minutes

Look at the numbers on the first screen together. About four babies are born every second. Ask: if you cannot choose where you are born, what kind of life might be waiting?

Same start — 15 minutes

Use the class code so everyone is born as the same baby. Live to somewhere between ten and fifteen, then pause. Talk about what stayed the same and what became different.

This is the heart of the lesson. The pupils share a country, a family and a starting year; their choices and luck diverge. The conversation is about which differences were chosen and which were not.

Same day, different countries, or Across the years — 10 minutes

Use the lab’s Same day, different countries view, or its Across the years view, to put five lives side by side. Ask what differed most: income, schooling, health, family, or the country itself.

World lab — 5 minutes

Let 300 babies be born in the lab. Compare the share who lived to five with the real statistic beside it. The developer’s teacher guide notes that each life is one possibility drawn from real odds; the numbers move a little with every run.

Closing — 5 minutes

Pick one life the class met today and write one line you would like to say to that person. The line can stay private or be shared, depending on your class.

Questions to discuss

The developer suggests:

• What could you not choose, and what could you choose?
• What divided the lives of children born on the same day the most?
• In the same country, how did life change with the year of birth?
• What would it take for fewer children to die before they turn five?
• What did you learn from the life of someone born somewhere very different from you?

Ideas by subject

Social studies: where you are born

Let everyone be born without a class code and collect the countries on the board. Countries with many births — India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan — come up often. Then use Same day, different countries to put five lives side by side and talk about what divided them.

Maths and statistics: reading real figures

In the World lab, run 100, 300 or 1,000 babies and compare the share who reached five, schooling at 25 and the ages at death with the real figures beside them. The more lives, the closer the sample comes to the real value; one life can be far from the average. This is a concrete way to teach sampling variation.

Ethics: diversity and respect

Pick one life born somewhere very different and tell one of its years from that person’s side. Faiths and cultures, disability, and whom people love appear at their real shares. Pupils can list what the person could not choose and what they could.

History: across the years

The lab’s Across the years view sets side by side children born in one country in 1950, 1970, 1990, 2010 and this year. Talk about how life expectancy and deaths before five changed, and how history such as war and famine reached one person’s life. The past appears as often as it happened, with no cruel scene shown.

The class code

In the lab’s Lesson guide, Make a class code gives a four-digit number. Write it on the board. When pupils type it into Class code on the first screen and are born, everyone who typed the same number is born as the same baby.

Important details:

• The code gives the same baby only for that day. Tomorrow the same number brings a different baby.
• From the next year, each pupil lives by their own choices and luck.
• In classroom mode, a life once born is lived to its end. When it ends, the pupil can be born again.
• Typing a class code starts a new life as that code’s baby, even while another life is going on.

After a life: the worksheet

When a life ends, Print as a worksheet in the record prints a worksheet looking back on that life. The finished life’s card can also be saved as an image on the device for a presentation or a worksheet.

In classroom mode, the social sharing, shared lives and memorial features are off. The worksheet and the image are the intended ways to take the life out of the browser.

Questions teachers ask

How long does a life take?

The pace options are about 30 minutes, about 1 hour (the default) and about 1.5 hours to reach the country’s life expectancy. At one hour, a year passes in about 40–60 seconds. Pupils can pause and speed up to 16×. In a 40-minute lesson, live to ten or fifteen and stop, or use the lab to show many lives at once.

Which devices work?

Chromebooks, iPads and Android tablets, phones, and computers with Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox. iPads on iOS 15 also work. If the school network blocks the site, ask the network manager to allow 1in8b.life.

One device per pupil is best. Two or three pupils sharing a screen and talking over the decisions also works well.

How does classroom mode stay on?

It is saved in the browser. In another browser or a private window, open the classroom address again. In a browser that clears data on close, open it again each lesson.

How do I turn it off?

On the teacher’s screen, tap Usual screen beside Classroom at the top, or open the address with ?edu=0 at the end. The pupil screen has no such button, so pupils do not leave it on their own.

What if a pupil’s character dies before 15?

The record opens with an explanation: how the life ended, the country’s and world’s rates for a death before five, what prevents such deaths, and a question to think over together. The developer recommends telling the class beforehand that this can happen.

The developer’s teacher guide cites 37 deaths before age five per 1,000 children in the world (UN IGME, 2023). That is roughly 3.7%. It is not a rare edge case; it is part of the simulation.

Can pupils share the lives they lived?

No. In classroom mode, posting to shared lives, reading strangers’ words, social sharing and memorials are off. A finished life’s card can be saved as an image on the device.

Does it cost anything? Do pupils sign up?

No. It is free from start to end, with no sign-up, no ads and nothing to install. Classroom mode shows no payment screen either.

Before you teach it

• Read the “left out / kept” list and decide whether it fits your class.
• Run one life yourself at the 30-minute pace.
• Check the school network allows 1in8b.life.
• Decide whether you want the class code or a free draw.
• Tell pupils that some characters die young, and that the record explains why.
• Have a closing question ready: what could this person not choose?