Hungry Red Planet - NR
Common Sense Note
This clearly educational simulation impressed our kid-testers because it was so much fun. They confessed to learning a tremendous amount about nutrition.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Jinny Gudmundsen
If you have children who think soda is a healthy breakfast, give them the software game called HUNGRY RED PLANET and you may find them reaching for the orange juice instead.
Hungry Red Planet is an innovative computer simulation produced by Health Media Lab, under a grant from the National Institutes for Health. The game sends children on a space mission to colonize Mars. Their goal is to colonize Mars by establishing healthy, food-producing settlements.
To keep the settlers healthy, and thus able to work at their potential, the player must provide healthy menus for the settlements. To succeed, kids will learn how to interpret FDA Nutrition Facts labels found on the 300 real foods available for menu planning; and to conform their menus to the Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid and Healthy Eating Index.
Players must also plan food production and how to allocate their resources to expand their settlements. Kids manage the colony for a series of turns (the number varies depending on the difficulty level), during which they will wrestle with food shortages, viruses, and unusual occurrences. If they keep the settlers healthy and produce enough food, they win.
This clearly educational simulation impressed our kid-testers because it was so much fun. They confessed to learning a tremendous amount about nutrition. Featuring excellent tutorials and a Nutrition Reference, Hungry Red Planet is terrific software for the home as well as for schools.
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Educational ValueA fantastic way to teach nutrition. |
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