Stop Disasters Game Review Stop Disasters is a simulation based game created by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) and the Playerthree Company. This game is available online for free, but requires the use of the most to date version of Flash Player 7 or higher. It is a single player game where the goal is to try to prevent many natural disasters include earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes and wildfires that effect different areas around the world. Each of these five scenarios take approximately 20 minutes to play, and the games can be played on easy, medium, and hard difficulty levels. The game was designed for the interest of children between the ages of 9-16, but it is suitable for all ages because of the educational content. There is no distinct end of the game so it can be played indefinitely, but the end could be considered when each of the five scenarios has been successfully completed on each of the three difficulty levels. One of the unique characteristics of Stop Disasters is since it is on online based game the web site will save your best scores, and it allows you to play against people all over the world. Stop Disasters has a lot of educational value that it can offer to anyone who plays the game. The basic goal of the game is to protect the area from the natural disaster. This can be done by providing the locals with evacuation instructions, education, shelter, hospitals, and certain defenses against the storm. This has to be done while operating within the $35,000 budget. In the game you not only have to protect the area from the storm, but to also develop the area to meet the basic needs of the locals. In the online game I played I had to protect South East Asia from a tsunami. The objectives were to build 2 schools, 3 hotels and a hospital while still providing defense mechanisms. When you make a good move the computer prompts you with key facts which give you tips as you progress within the 15 minutes before the storm began. During the game you are in charge of providing the area with as much protection as you can provide. This includes developing the area with houses made of sticks, concrete, wood, and bricks while still reaching the games objectives. Therefore, the ability to learn how to budget is the key point of the game. I believe that this game would be very beneficial for an economics, science, or a social studies lesson that deals with natural disasters. It really provides a lot of insight on to the natural disaster that are prone to certain areas, and the defenses that can be used in order to help prevent as much damage as possible. These defenses include upgrading the existing facilities such as the community center, placing seismic sensors in the ocean, filling the water with mangrove bushes and breakwaters. Then on land you can build sand dunes and palm trees on the beach while putting trees inland. It is really geographically correct because you can only put certain types of vegetation in certain areas. Both developing and defenses options are allotted a dollar amount, and come out of that $35,000 beginning budget. Therefore, this game really provides a lot of importance on budgeting by determining which action is most appropriate for your budget. This game is great to meet the 21st century skills of critical thinking and problem solving in order to help students become more interested in the business community. As I played the game I realized that this would be an appropriate game to play with a class of economics, science, or social studies students. Since it was developed by the ISDR the game is educationally based, but I believe that it would be appropriate for the classroom. The game is not too difficult to play, but it is rather difficult to learn how to successful play each level. At the end of each of the scenarios it provides you with a detail about the amount the damages of the storm. These facts are presented as if the media is reporting on the storm because it looks like it is the cover of the news paper. It provides the amount of the storms damages, the total number of deaths, the amount injured, and then how successful you were based on a monetary amount. Then it determines if you failed or passes your mission in order to move to the next scenario. This was a very fun and challenging game to play especially because you can determine which difficulty level you would like to play. I don?t believe that students would have a lot of difficulty learning how to play the game, but it can become very frustrating putting that much time into the game to only realize you failed your mission. Therefore, I believe that I would recommend this game for any middle or high school economics, science or social studies classroom. It really does a good job providing information on geography, natural disasters, budgeting, and many other facts that can be used for educational purposes. This is a real user friendly game because it gives a lot of key facts and is very simple format that makes the game easy to understand. Therefore, I believe that Stop Disasters is a game that can provide a lot of educational value to many different classrooms. Posted by klmaxwe2 ( Oct 01 2007, 07:46:15 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]