Last week was my first opportunity to use the laptops. The project my students were working on was centered around the "Eco Tycoon" game. The premise of this game is very simple. Players select a continent that they will be in charge of. From that point on, they have free reign over all political, economic, and environmental decisions that are made. As the game progresses, students are given an Annual Report for their continent. Within this Annual Report one can find carbon levels, energy production numbers, and import/export information. Given this information, students attempt to consistently improve their continent on a year to year basis.
Originally, our team was going to base an Urban Planning lesson off of the Sim City games. We weren't able to get access to this game, but "Eco Tycoon" seems to be a sufficient alternate. Students still have the ability to manipulate the landscape by deciding which forms of energy and industry will be built on their continent. On the other hand, this game seems to lean more towards the Human-Environment Interaction realm as opposed to Urban Planning.
Nonetheless, the project I created still involves critical thinking questions, keeping an annual log, and producing a hard copy map of their finished continent.
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