SimCity As A Learning Tool?

SimCity has almost always been a good tool for teaching people about basic civic structure. But definitely not for how cities should be built. 

okay kids. write the solution to your math homework using the curved road tool. you get extra credit if you are able to write your solution with the given amount of simoleons .

 

Kidding aside. I think this is a good idea to make school exciting for kids. While not exactly as realistic as we'd hoped, it's ideal for primary school. And we know how critical primary school is to children's development.

As a retired educator I agree that this approach is a good start.  The new game might well be suitable for this especially since it is server oriented and on-line.

 

The graphics are certainly suitable for primary school students.

SimCity for homework? Now that would be nuts

 

My grade school computer lab has the original SimCity on it... Played it a lot during 'learning time'.

"Micro" is the right word for this game indeed.

The publicly available version of SC 1 is called Micropolis.  Here is the description from my distro page:

 

This games simulates building and managing a whole city. The goal of the

game is to build and design a city. The player can mark land as being

zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change

the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and many

other actions, in order to enhance the city.

Micropolis is the GPL-licensed version of SimCity.