Sim City 2000 Project

Check out http://kls.monroe.k12.fl.us/TECHTOYS05/sim_city.htm

It features lesson plans and grading cards for the use of Sim City in a school education environment....

From the website-
SIM City 2000 provides the basis for a unit in which students learn about the infrastructure of a small city. Students are charged with the responsibility of creating a city of at least 50,000 people. I throw in some other requirements to increase the difficulty, such as the mountains and water must be set at level two (on the editing bar), there must be a coastline, seaport, airport, highway, and a rail or subway. They must demonstrate obvious planning of their transportation system and city development. There must be green areas separating sections of the city.

The city Grading Sheet is based on the 2001 National Future City Competition grading criteria. Half the grade requires that students keep a journal entry of each day's progress on the 10 parameters. I don't remind them. The other 50% of the grade is accumulated by gaining 5 points for each grading criteria they meet on the grading sheet.

Most importantly, they must use "clean" power that actually exists. This limits them to Solar, Wind, or Hydroelectric sources. This provides the basis for the Power Point they must create.
The Power Point presentation incorporates internet research on the current (no pun intended!) technology of energy production. Topics are open to Energy Production in general, or specific topics such as the above clean sources, or attempts to make fossil fuels more efficient and less damaging to the environment. Emerging technologies and sources may be explored, such as Bio-mass Energy, Hydrogen fuel cells, Bio-fuels, and the latest in Fusion technology.

This leaves a lot of room for creativity and personal interest in the presentations and the resulting Power Points have been absolutely impressive.