SimCity
From Eduwiki
Sim City is a classic game that has been around for a while. The purpose or goal of this game is to create and maintain a thriving city. You, the player can control every aspect of the game from where and when to build a residential complex to where and when to build a powerplant. When you start the game you start out with a budget. From there you need to build: -Roads -Parks -Police Statios -Fire Stations -Stadiums -Power Plants (coal or nuclear) -Commercial Buildings -Industrial Buildings -Train tracks -Sea Ports -Electrical Lines -Airports As you lay out your city in the upper right hand corner appear a graph that tells you what area on need you are lacking wether it may be Industrial, Commercial, or Residential. Once the city is laid out you can control how high the taxes are and how much money is allocated to public funds like the police department. One needs to be careful of raising taxes because there is an approval meter that tells you have well liked you are by the people in the city. If you raise taxes too high they will move out of your town. This is not want you want since people are the ones generating revenue for you to continue to expand the city.
Sim City makes the player really think about how to create a sustainable city. If you don't have roads that connect businesses and homes together how are people going to get to work. I found that it is best to build a city with lots of roads so that people have more than one option in driving somewhere. Also another important factor is that you don't want to have your commercial buildings far away from your houses. I left my tax rate around 8% and the people seamed pretty happy. A fire station is a must. The first time I played this my city went up in flames. After 4 or 5 games i got the hang of it for the most part. You really need to plan ahead and decide where your industries, commercial, and residential buildings are going to be.
This game can be beneficial to students in the classroom. I know they would be engaged. One of my students loves telling me about how he plays sim city at home. As far as the educational perspective it teaches a person what all goes into creating and maintaining a city. I am not sure what class this would be used for....maybe math, econ, or social studies?
