Activities in Whyville

Here are some of the engaging ways that kids can become more digitally literate while having fun. I know that the drive to win clams motivated me to figure out the sometimes complicated controls.

Scion Driving School

I drove a car using my arrow keys. For the first task I had to drive to a checkered square and then stop; doing this increased my salary by 2 clams. Yay!

The next stage is avoiding trees, then it is staying on a road, next staying on a road with curves, and the last one I did was staying in the right hand lane. A neat little driving school within Whyville.

Cafeteria

Trash Game

This game is all about sorting discarded objects into recyclable or trash. There are four bins. Kids have to put the objects in the correct bin out of these four choices: glass, paper, plastic, trash. Hey! I earned 9 clams for playing the game twice. That’s pretty sweet!

Food Sort

The task is to put food away in the kitchen storage area. Food is dry, refrigerated, or frozen. The refrigerated food needs to be sorted between produce, meat and dairy. The dry foods need to be put on the shelf alphabetically.

With both activities it is interactive because other avatars are cleaning up or stocking shelves right alongside you. It is a team effort, and everyone gets rewarded with clams in proportion to how much they contributed.

Bioplex

Vaccine Lab

I still have not figured out this yet. I think I have to find viruses first, then I can find vaccines for them.

Virus Lab

Unfortunately my internet failed every time I tried to do any of the activities in this part of Whyville. From the description though, I can tell that the science is pretty detailed which I think is great!

C.A.R.E Lobby

Habitat Creator

The object of this game is to put the right objects in animal cages. There is a timer, and the goal is to make as many cages ready to be inhabited by an animal before the timer runs out. The possible cages are: frog, rat, pidgeon, fish, and pig. Again, like in the cafeteria, the job is completed with other players, and clams are earned proportionally.

AALAS Solitaire

Here the goal is to sort cards to match a disease and an experimental process to research the disease. I was given HIV and then muscular distrophy. For each I had to match the appropriate Vehicle, Experiment, and Impact card to the disease in question. Kids can learn how research is done and how it impacts the world.

Critter Care

This game is tricky! Kids have to use their critical thinking skills in order to be successful. I tried taking care of the fish; it was a disaster. There are four tanks, and you need to read the records, feed the fish, clean the tank, possibly change the water filter, and then tag the tank with a red or green tag. The red tag is to signal that the fish might not be okay, and the green tag is to signal that the fish is doing fine. The tag part is the complicated part. If a fish’s tank is dirty, yet the tank had been cleaned in the last day, then they might be sick, so the tank needs a red tag. Also, if the fish’s tank is clean and the tank hasn’t been cleaned recently, then that tank needs a red tag as well. There are other tricky circumstances as well, but those are just two of the reasons I failed to successfully care for the fish.

Bankinter

Here is a place where kids can put their clams into a savings account. This is great to get kids thinking about saving money in the 'real world'. If students want to put clams in a CD account, then they need to have at least 500 clams that they are ready to deposit. Unfortunately, I have nowhere near enough clams to do this….

Dance Studio

Here kids pay clams to learn a dance. To learn the dance, you make vectors on a coordinate plane that match the path already laid out. Then you pick how long you will pause at each step. When you have the timing and placement right, then you “learn” the dance. Now your avatar can spontaneously dance anywhere chatting is allowed. All you have to do is type in “dance shuffle” or “dance cancan” (depending on the dance you learned), and then to stop you have to simply type in “dance stop.” Also, in general to confirm purchases, you need to type in “pretty please” to confirm your purchase. Isn't that a pretty cool integration of the chat function into Whyville life?