Educational SimCity mod coming to schools next month

GlassLab, the educational video game lab established by the Institute of Play, Electronic Arts and the Entertainment Software Association last year, is set to release an educational version of SimCity for schools next month. SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! will be released in select U.S. schools on November 7, and will challenge grade 6-8 students to play the role of a mayor, and address environmental impacts. Students will be asked to deal with these environmental issues, while also struggling with employment needs and citizen happiness in their cities. The special version of the city-building game, based on the latest release from earlier this year, has been integrated into curriculum plans and comes equipped with teaching guidelines for classrooms. SimCity creative director Stone Librande explained, "They are taking the software, and they are able to take the time and energy to focus it just for educational uses. They can go into our interfaces and change them around, and custom-tailor them to a certain age range of kid, for a certain classroom setting and lesson plan that they've devised."