Virtual Forest Challenge is a video game from Scholastic that takes students through a variety of daily life situations and asks them to make environmentally responsible choices. It doesn’t take that long to play through, and it’s got a good variety of daily behaviors for students to think about. There are also some […]
Entries Tagged as 'video games'
Virtual Forest Challenge
April 13th, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: video games · global issues activities · the environment · blog
The Best “Cause-Related” Online Learning Games
March 26th, 2009 · No Comments
Larry Ferlazzo recently posted a brief summary of a variety of cause-related online games. I’ve posted about free rice and free poverty before, but a bunch of the other ones are new to me. I’m not sure how reliable the claims of charitable donations from the various sites are, but they are worth […]
Tags: food and hunger · water · poverty & wealth · video games · the environment · global issues activities · blog
Peace Corps Challenge Online Game
March 12th, 2009 · No Comments
I just came across a Flash-based game that simulates what it’s like to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I haven’t played it a great deal, but it seems like a decent game for language learners. You start out in a village, trying to solve a problem with their water supply. The bulk […]
Tags: health · food and hunger · visual prompts · water · poverty & wealth · vocabulary · reading · global issues activities · video games · blog
Some Eco-Themed Videogames
January 7th, 2009 · No Comments
Low Impact Living just profiled several environmentally-themed video games, some of which look like they would be good to use with language learners.
In Climate Challenge, the player is president of the European Union, and the goal is to balance green policy with keeping the populace happy.
Ayiti: The Cost of Life gives students the chance to […]
Tags: poverty & wealth · food and hunger · climate change · politics · global issues activities · video games · the environment
New and Improved FreeRice.com
September 16th, 2008 · No Comments
I first mentioned FreeRice last year. In brief, it was a website that raised money via advertising to make donations of rice while visitors to the site went through a vocabulary quiz. Now, they have added quizzes on a variety of other subjects, including grammar, art, geography and chemistry. They have also […]
Tags: vocabulary · food and hunger · video games · global issues activities · ESL activity · blog
FreePoverty.com
June 19th, 2008 · No Comments
FreePoverty is a new site similar to FreeRice. Students go through a geography quiz, with correct answers raising money for water donations to developing countries. Currently, I haven’t seen any third party validation of the site, so I’m not sure if it is legit or not. The quiz is pretty fun, though. […]
Tags: vocabulary · video games · global issues activities · blog
Sim Sweatshop
March 19th, 2008 · No Comments
My interest in videogames as tools for teaching global issues has been waning a bit, but I just saw Sim Sweatshop, a game that attempts to let players experience life in a sneaker sweatshop. Throughout the game, the player is presented with options and situations via pop-up windows. These require reading, and refer […]
Tags: consumerism · video games · global issues activities · blog
Harpooned: Japanese Cetacean Research Simulator
January 29th, 2008 · No Comments
A while back, I posted a bit about Japanese whale “research” that results in the slaughter and consumption of large numbers of whales. Harpooned is a new videogame simulating this. You play the part of a whaler and try to kill as many whales as possible, while avoiding the legal fees associated with […]
Tags: video games · global issues activities · blog
Disaster Watch
December 19th, 2007 · No Comments
Disaster Watch is a another video game (like Stop Disasters) that deals with natural disaster preparedness. There is a decent amount of reading in the game, particularly in the first level, where the player tries to collect clues about a coming disaster. Level two and three are basically just arcade games, at least […]
Tags: video games · natural disasters · global issues activities · reading · ESL activity · blog
Against All Odds
November 12th, 2007 · No Comments
Against All Odds is a game by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. It attempts to simulate what it is like to be a refugee and is newly-available in English. There is a lot of reading involved in the game, so I think it could work well in an English […]
Tags: video games · global issues activities · reading · ESL activity · blog