I have spent this weekend messing around on Plan it Green: The Big Switch! It is a game created in collaboration with entities like GE and National Geographic and is a simulation based game. Plan it Green is essentially a watered down version of Sim City in which you build and upgrade buildings while thinking about environmental impact. The game forces you, the city planner, to make tough decisions as you have to power your city while balancing emissions. The game is entertaining enoughto play and certainly would be a useful learning tool for a teacher to use in the classroom. It is more geared towards students in grade school or junior high as it doesn't really have any complex moving parts. The game features informational videos about green technology being developed and gives players the chance to learn how such technology works on its most basic level (unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to take screen shots of the game yet).
Some issues I have encountered in playing this game is that it moves frustratingly slow. You would have to put in some serious hours to get your town to city size and I am afraid that students would not have enough time in the classroom to explore the game (maybe assign it as homework?). Also, I wish the developers would include better upgrades for the buildings that you construct. I spend so many resources repairing the buildings that I have already dumped plenty of money into for upgrades that I do not have enough money to grow and expand (maybe i'm not cut out for city planning).
Overall, this game would be a decent resource for students to get them to start thinking about what options are available to make their homes, and their city, more efficient and sustainable. I wish I could restart my city because honestly I did a pretty poor job of setting up my residential districts and I put a park right next to a coal power facility so now all of the kids have the black lung, I assume.
A link to the game:
http://www.planitgreenlive.com/en/play
This game sounds very interesting by providing the player with a different point of view towards climate change. By being the city planner, the player has to take in so many different aspects that could potentially contradict one another. Sounds like an interesting game, even though it moves at a slower rate.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a cool game to play if you have the time to invest in it. I like how you get to make lots of different decisions that we can't make as easily in real life. I think this could help people gain a better understanding of the changes that need to be made.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a cool game to play if you have the time to invest in it. I like how you get to make lots of different decisions that we can't make as easily in real life. I think this could help people gain a better understanding of the changes that need to be made.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like some sort of Civilization game in which the games themselves can easily last hours. Playing the perspective of the city planner may help kids see how challenging it can be to balance every demand from the people and satisfy the demands of climate change, simultaneously.
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