Deep in an uncharted jungle, the ruins of an ancient civilisation have been discovered — the Logarithmians — whose entire culture was built on the laws of logarithms and exponential growth.
The temple at the heart of the ruins is 30 chambers deep. Each chamber is sealed by a mathematical cipher. Only a true mathematician can unlock them and reach the inner sanctum.
You are the expedition leader. Your goal is to navigate the board — 30 spaces from the jungle's edge to the inner sanctum — by rolling the expedition dice and solving the mathematical ciphers that guard each chamber.
The expedition is a board game played individually (or in pairs). Each turn: roll the dice, face a question matched to your roll, answer correctly to advance. Incorrect answers leave you in place until your next turn.
First to reach the Sanctum — Space 30 — wins the expedition.
This works well as a lesson-long individual activity, or as pairs competing to reach the sanctum. The randomised dice means different students face different questions — minimising copying. Suggested time: 45–60 minutes.
The random dice means every student encounters a mix of all three tiers throughout the game — weaker students still meet Bronze regularly, while stronger students are challenged by Gold. No student gets stuck on one level only.
🥉 Bronze Ciphers
Basic log evaluation · Product, quotient and power laws · Writing in terms of given values · Change of base formula · Natural logarithms (ln)
🥈 Silver Ciphers
Telescoping log products · Solving exponential equations using logs · Finding unknowns in log equations · More complex change of base
🥇 Gold Ciphers
Exponential growth and decay models · Population and investment problems · Multi-step equations · Domain restrictions · IB-style contextual modelling
📋 IB Syllabus
Covers topics from SL Analysis & Approaches and SL Applications & Interpretation — suitable for both pathways.