World Vision Sim Games: ideal and free for the classroom

Modern Studies, politics, citizenship or English teachers will surely find immediate uses for the new simulation games released online by charity World Vision's new Zealand branch. There are five to choose from, with most of them running in 'real time' during school terms:

Elliminate - Child labour
" Step into the shoes" of a social worker with the goal to eliminate child labour in a community. Take up the challenge, one child at a time. Suitable for senior primary and older.

Frontline
Set in a conflict zone, teams face decisions that save lives and assist those impacted by conflict. A new Frontline game begins each school term. Suitable for intermediate and secondary students

EQ
This email game offers the challenges of delivering relief after an earthquake while also raising funds. EQ runs 4 weeks each school term. Suitable for senior primary and older.

Timestream journey
Students "walk in the shoes" of a Cambodian facing the challenges of surviving through civil war, the Khmer Rouge regime and the years of upheaval that followed. Suitable for intermediate and secondary.

Take a walk
Found in the Funzone of the Rwanda Family Connection, students "become" the head of a child family in Rwanda. Decisions made affect the survival rating of your family. Suitable for all levels.

The main page carries not only links to all the games but supplemental teaching and learning resources to go with it. And that's the advantage of this type of educational sim game - it's almost ready-to-go.

What I'd be interested in, though, is how much extra work is involved in bringing their use into the normal flow of the classroom. Do they fit like a glove, are you just mixing and matching the bits that are most use to you, are you going to just recommend these to kids as a homework type task?

Comments

[Joe Wilson]

We have been looking actively at lots of these developments - for some time now - folks should also have a look at http://www.costlife.org/ and check out http://www.globalkids.org who do other things too.

Closer to home and developed by Scottish Teachers, LTScotland , SQA and a New Zealand developer - have a look at http://www.sportstore.org.uk/

Which will be available to all schools in Scotland from May

[David Noble]

You can try out Sports Store at the moment. Looks like an excellent way of teacher enterprise and business studies.

[Wesley Fryer]

Great list of game links Ewan. Thanks for sharing these!!!

[Neil Goodfellow]

Great games. I've done a similar decision making excesise on earthquakes before. I will definetly use them in class, probably as a starter or a way of leading into a discussion or further research. I'm teaching these areas at the moment so i'll blog about how I got on